Ready, Set, Go!
by Asynca
Summary: An anthology of various Tomb Raider Survivor prompts people have given me on Tumblr that were too short to upload by themselves. Most of them are at least loosely Lara/Sam. There's fluff, humour, angst, romance and drama. I will update from time to time with new drabbles as I write them.
1. Chapter 1

**Ready, Set, Go! : an anthology of Tomb Raider Prompts Given to Me By the Tumblr Community**

By Asynca

I take prompts. A lot of them are too short or not 'story' enough to upload by themselves, so I've bundled them all together and dumped them here.

None of them are connected to each other, but some of them are loosely based on _The Camera Loves You_-verse.

* * *

**"Prompt: That one time at film camp."**

Good one!

**That One Time at Film Camp - Sam/OC, Lara - (a tiny little bit) NSFW**

Pre-slash, bby.

* * *

—-

Yeah, well. You know what they say, right? What happens at film camp _stays_ at film camp.

Actually film camp is kind of a misnomer because it's not actually a _camp_ per se. It's a convention thing that happens in West London once a year and all the media and film tech students go to it. There's heaps of industry there and you're supposed to network and make connections. Well, that's the plan, anyway. What _actually_ happens is that we all sit and look very serious in lecture theaters all day and then get totally wasted and 'make connections' at the bar afterwards.

I tried to get Lara to come a couple of times but she was too busy with research and always gave me some lame excuse. It drove me nuts. As _if_ she couldn't find _one night_ in the week to come out, right? Whatever, it was her loss. Media students are crazy after the cameras are off.

It was the second to last night and I was having a personal crisis because all the cute guys at convention were ones I'd hooked up with last year. Not that I have a problem with recycling, exactly, but when there's six hundred students you only see once a year you want to choose wisely.

Also, and probably most importantly, I was wearing the _cutest_ top. It would be some sort of crime against fashion if it didn't get me laid at least once.

I was leaning against the bar, putting back my fourth or fifth splice when I realized that most of the cute boys had already picked up and the next tier down was all that was left at hotel bar. I put my glass on the table and made a face. Not an ideal situation, but not a total write-off, either. My family was well-known for our commitment to charity. I would just have to tap into that Nishimura generosity and gift one of these poor guys with a night he'd never forget.

…if I could walk over to one of them without falling over, that was. I put a hand out to the bar to steady myself and nearly grabbed some girl's jeans.

"Whoa, whoa…" she said, and grabbed my arms to stop me from falling over.

I straightened, fixing my super cute top. "Thanks," I said. "On second thoughts, maybe I should have stopped at my _last_ splice."

She was pretty hot herself, actually. She had a legit 'fro which was hedge-cut to a perfect sphere and was wearing a gold jeans that might as well have been sprayed on. Okay, I'll be honest, I did notice she was carrying a bit of extra weight, but it totally suited her. She was also wearing this really bold zebra-stripe top that I could never pull off. For like three seconds I wished I was a really hot black girl.

She noticed me looking. "Hey, you like it?" She smoothed it down her front. She had _huge_ boobs. "I wasn't too sure if I could get away with it but YOLO, right?"

"Right," I repeated. "And it totally suits you."

She grinned, and then turned to look out at the slim selection of tail still drinking around us. "Pity it's all for nothing."

I laughed. The room was spinning a little. "I know! I was just thinking that. I dressed up for _this? _Maybe I should just go home."

"I think I'm going to have to adjust my expectations of how this evening is going to go," she said, and held out her hand to me. She had this huge white statement ring on and after admiring it, I shook her hand. "Emily," she said. "Wardrobe design." All the great clothes suddenly made perfect sense. She looked me up and down. "You're Samantha Nishimura, right?"

I pretended to curtsy and nearly fell over again. "That's me."

"I thought so. I loved that documentary you did." She tapped her chin. "What was it called? Something about Blue Skies."

"—Blue Skies over London," I said. The irony was that in every shot it was pouring with rain. "Thanks. Wish my tutor had liked it as much."

She rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it. Some of them are _so_ old school. I got some comment on my portfolio that I needed to pay more attention to matching fabrics. It was ridiculous, don't they know that hipster fashion is all about specifically choosing items that don't match?" She laughed, and then finished her laugh, smiling at me. "Well, your tutor is an idiot. Your work is _brilliant_. You're pretty cute, too."

I squinted at her. That smile was a little too attentive. "Are you hitting on me?" I giggled. I hadn't expected that at first because she didn't seem nearly as drunk as I was.

She leaned casually on the bar. "Well, you're a step up from _these_ guys." She nodded out at the men circulating. "I'm guessing you're not gay?"

"Ten points," I said, grinning at her. "Although maybe I shouldn't give them to you because you probably saw me up on some guy on Wednesday night."

"And Thursday," she agreed. "Should I buy you a drink? Isn't that usually how guys do it?"

I held my hand up. "No more drinks," I said. "Unless you really enjoy making out with people who are comatose. I'm good to go now."

She laughed. "Well, then," she said, and took a step in towards me. "Shit. What am I doing?"

"I hear you," I said, looking down the neckline of her top into extremely intimidating cleavage. That was certainly something I'd never expected to see when I was about to get it on with someone.

When she kissed me I totally had a Katy Perry moment, because I could taste her lip gloss. She had it all over these big pillowy lips which I wasn't sure if I should be jealous of or pleased about. Her body was also really soft, and the graduation of that little waist into her big hips was kind of an interesting feeling under my hands. I wasn't really turned or anything to start with. I mean, it wasn't gross or anything, but it was _a girl_.

That all changed when her nails brushed over the fabric of my cute top where one of my nipples was. It was hard for some reason – reflex, probably – and when she touched it, it felt_ good. _Okay, I thought, I could totally go for this. I put my hand under _her_ top to explore her supersized boobs.

"Hey, ladies," the bartender was saying near us. "You'll need to take that somewhere else."

She stopped kissing me for a minute, her face still really close to mine. I could smell a combination of strawberry lip gloss and perfume. "You staying here?" she murmured. There was a smile in her voice.

I wasn't, and back at my apartment Lara would definitely still be awake. I didn't want to have to explain to her why I was taking a random girl into my bedroom. I wasn't sure she'd understand; she always got really weird whenever the topic of girl-on-girl came up.

"Not unless you count my car," I said. "It _is_ a Lexus, though, so it has leather seats."

She laughed. "How High School," she said. "Okay, let's go."

Despite being catastrophically above the blood alcohol limit, I managed to find my car in the parking lot. We piled onto the back seat of it and I lay on top of her. She pulled me down and we got stuck into kissing again. My phone was vibrating in my back pocket, but I ignored it.

Her top was pretty loose and came over her head nice and easy. I sat back. "Wow," I said, admiring what it revealed. "That's a _really_ nice bra."

She looked down at it. "Yeah, it's _Ann Summers_," she said. "I think it's the only style that comes in my size."

"That doesn't surprise me," I said. Her size was colossal. Literally, they were as big as my head. To test this theory, I put my face between them. It made her laugh. "Mine are kind of disappointing in comparison," I mumbled into her skin.

She pushed me up and pulled _my_ cute top off. I took my bra off and let her fill her hands with my boobs. She looked thoughtful. "All of you is so tiny," she said. "You're like a fairy or something."

"A _fairy_?" I asked her, bursting into giggles. "Are you _serious_?"

She was giggling with me. "I'm really drunk, okay? I don't know what I'm saying. Or what I'm doing, apparently." She was messing with my belt. "Have you been with a girl before?"

"Nope," I said. "Well, I kissed a few girls on dance floors, but that was mainly to tease guys."

"Yeah, me neither," she said. "You think that makes us bi?"

I shrugged. "I am _way_ too drunk to be making life decisions right now. Let's just fuck and worry about the details later."

We messed around for a bit, and at some point her bra came off and my hand ended up down her pants. I was just trying to decide if I was brave enough to go down on her when she yelled and made a grab for her top, looking out the window behind me.

"What?" I asked her, automatically reaching for my top. Someone had probably walked past. "The windows are way too fogged, no one can see in."

"Someone put their face against the car," she said. "Scared the hell out of me."

"Let's give them a thrill," I said. "Come on."

She was trying to stop me as I rolled down the window and leaned out of it, only holding a t-shirt in front of my chest. "Hey!" I called at the figure who was hurriedly walking away. "Did you get the show you were—" The figure turned around when I called out to them. I immediately recognized her and my heart practically stopped. "—_Lara_?!"

She had a really strange, hurt expression on her face. Her eyes flickered between me and the other side of the car. Emily had gotten out, somehow managing to get dressed in record time. It took her the space of a second to go from hurt to _shocked_. "Is that a…?" she began and then stopped, her mouth open. Emily couldn't have been any _more_ female.

"Yeah, I think this is where I make a timely exit," Emily said to me when she saw Lara's expression, and then jogged off through the parking lot. I watched her go, kind of annoyed with everything. I'd been really gearing up for some good head.

Lara was just staring at me. She came to some internal conclusion, and then spun on her heels, crossed her arms across her chest and marched away. I quickly pulled my cute top over my head and staggered uncomfortably after her; my bra was still somewhere in the car. "Lara! Come back!"

She didn't stop until I circled her upper arm and made her. God, this was going to be awkward. Lara was so uptight. "Can you not be weird about this? I was just messing around."

She looked sharply at me. I noticed she was all dressed up. "'Weird about this'? Really, Sam?"

I shrugged. "Like I said, it doesn't have to _mean_ anything, I was just—"

"Sam, I don't care what it means." And yet, she looked like she seriously cared about something. "I just…" She sighed. "I just thought I'd surprise you by coming out to have some fun with you, after all. But I suppose you're ready to leave."

I glanced in the direction Emily had fled. "Well, in case you didn't notice, my ride has kind of left without me." That made her smile a little. "We could go back inside the hotel and chill a bit, I guess."

She looked a little coy. "If you're hoping I'll pick up where she left off, I'm not sure there's enough alcohol in the world for that."

I loved hearing her being cheeky. Maybe I was wrong about the whole weird thing with her. "I don't know," I said. "There's a _lot_ of alcohol in that place. Wait a second, let me just get my bra."

The bartender looked kind of confused when I came back in with a different girl than I'd left with, but he played it cool. "No more drinks for you," he told me, though, and then looked pointedly at Lara.

"I have to drive," she told him apologetically. "But I'll have a diet coke."

While he was pouring it for her, she sat against the bar with me. After a few seconds, a lightbulb practically sprung to life over her head. "Huh," she said, surveying all the patrons. "I suddenly understand why you made the choices you just did." She accepted her diet coke and took a sip. "If _this_ is the selection of men film camp has, no wonder you keep nagging me to come along and keep you company."

I had this, like, fraction of a second where I very nearly leaned over and kissed her. I mean, it's not that confusing why; she was _way_ hotter than all the guys there and since I'd just had my hands in some other girl's pants it wasn't a giant leap to be looking at _this_ girl like that.

Luckily, despite being wasted, I managed to not. She was my best friend. …and she was looking pretty good, and I never did get that head I was after.

I looked forward, taking a deep breath. Lara was just being all quiet and sweet next to me and had _no idea_ what I'd just nearly done.

Okay, Sam, I thought. That's _enough_ alcohol for tonight. Dangerous ground, here.

"Just let me know if you're going to come next time so I can drink a whole lot less," I told her, but didn't say why.

That is the one thing that could happen that would not end up staying just at film camp.

* * *

**When Your Heroes Aren't Heroes - Drabble - Lara**

* * *

I've spent so long looking up to him.

I've seen all his episode so many times that I can ever pause the video and recite all the dialogue afterward. I know all the locations, all the artefacts, all the theories, _everything_ he was searching for. I would often say to Roth, "One day it's going to be '_Lara's World_' and you'll be watching me on that telly!"

Whitman was everything I wanted to be, everything. Until I met him.

I didn't really expect him to recognise my name or care about whose daughter I was. He didn't, anyway. I told myself that was fine, because I didn't want to always be Richard's daughter. If he didn't know my father, good! I could prove myself to him just by showing him what I knew.

He didn't care about what I knew, though. He wouldn't listen. Why should he? I asked myself. I'm just a fresh graduate from a normal Bachaelor's, of course he doesn't want to listen to me. I probably don't even know enough to realise what I don't know.

It took Sam all evening to convince me to confront him again, and I did, in front of everyone. It turned into so much of a fight that _Roth_ had to step in.

After that he didn't say a word to me for days. Still I forgave him in my head. Would I believe me if I'd just met me? I caught sight of myself in the mirror while I was getting ready for bed all those nights. I'm so young, I always thought. I'm so young, of course he can't see the years of research and study I've put into this. He's just being cautious with his savings and Sam's Family's money. He's been doing this for decades, told myself. _I _should be the one learning from _him._

It wasn't until he was pointing a gun at the Russians that I finally accepted he wasn't the idol I needed him to be. He was pointing, not firing, and then surrendering.

"Just go along with them Lara," he was saying while a man was kneeling on my back and binding my hands. He didn't know what they wanted or what they planned to do to me. "Just go along with them and do whatever they say!"

It was when I stopped trusting my old hero that I became one myself.

* * *

**Revenge (Drabble) - Lara & Sam (POV)**

* * *

So, I can't actually see Lara as much as I can _feel_ her hovering behind me. She does this thing where she gets up to get a drink from the kitchen and on the way back just happens to catch sight of whatever I'm doing on the computer. It drives me nuts.

Inevitably I hear a disapproving noise and a hand extends over my shoulder. "You have a typo," she says helpfully, pointing at my screen. "Just there, and also you've missed a comma–"

I push her hand away. "They're _notes_, Lara." I twist in my chair so she can see me roll my eyes. "I'm not writing a dissertation."

She pretends to shrug casually as she takes a sip from her glass of water. "Okay," she says, in a tone of voice which suggests that it's not okay. That, in fact, leaving like one single typo in my own personal notes is _the beginning of the end. _From here it's just a short slide into oblivion and the point where I hand in all my essays in txt spk.

Later, when _I'm_ coming back out of the kitchen with a cold slice of pizza, I pull Lara's trick. She's leaning towards the computer screen, chewing on her lip. Over her shoulder I can see she's elbow-deep in some totally dry translation. Gleefully I notice she's made a mistake.

"Wrong '_shou_," I inform her. "That's the heart radical, not the hand one. It means 'threaten'."

Lara looks slowly back toward me, very successfully interpreting the character through narrowed eyes. She corrects her error, though.

I smirk and strut off to finish my pizza. I think I even have another episode of _Nothing to Declare_ downloaded and ready to watch, too.

–

When I finish the episode and go to drop my plate off back in the kitchen, there is this incredibly epic pile of dishes in the sink. I swear to God every dish we own is in there, and there's some thick film of grease over every single one of them. A quick glance at the fridge and Lara's perfectly drawn roster indicates that tonight the dishes are my problem.

I lean out of the kitchen. "What the fuck, Lara? Are you moonlighting as a wedding caterer or something?"

She doesn't even look up from the screen. "Oh, I accidentally spilled a whole bottle of olive oil into the cupboard," she says very neutrally, totally aware of the fact we both know she has ninja-like reflexes. "I'm so sorry."

–

Lara usually has a shower at nine or ten at night, when she's trying to convince herself to go to bed. It never works, though, because she's always up until at least midnight. I wait until she's shut in the bathroom and then creep over to her computer. She's done with the translation and is in the middle of proof-reading her final essay. I read a few paragraphs; it's about the role of women in feudal Japan. Like, I don't want to be a total traitor to my ancestors or anything but this stuff is _so boring. _I groan, and then insert a few errors into it. I stop when I get to five, though. I'm not a sadist.

When Lara emerges from the bathroom I'm sitting on her desk, drinking a coffee and smiling darkly at her.

She stares at me, a towel around her middle. "Why do I have a bad feeling about that smile?"

I push myself slowly off the table. "Since your idea of entertainment is correct typos," I say, "I hid six of them in your essay. Enjoy!"

Lara does _the best_ evil glares. She directs one of her finest and then stomps over to her computer as I vacate it, not even bothering to get dressed. "You didn't…" she says, tabbing through it as if I'd be dumb enough to put in errors that spellcheck would pick up. She looks up at me, just to double-check I'm not messing with her. I pretend to toast her with my coffee, and then take a mouthful.

"I'm going to bed," I tell her, leaving her gaping at me. "Washing all those dishes was totally exhausting."

–

At some point during the night I wake up from a really weird dream about France and realize that Lara's isn't in the bed across from me. I sit up just to double-check; the blankets are still tucked neatly under the pillow. I glance at the clock: the red text reads _02:17. _

Wandering out into the living room, I see Lara's face in the glow of her computer screen. She has stopped glaring and now just looks tired and distressed. There are deep frown lines in her forehead. She glances at me as I stand in the doorway. "I hate you," she says.

"Payback for the dishes," I tell her. "Don't tell me you can't find them all."

She makes a face. "I found five," she says. "I've been looking for the sixth for the last two hours." She leans back from the computer screen, stretching. "I give up," she says. "You win. Where's the sixth?"

I wince. I had totally forgotten I told her there were six. "Uh, you promise you won't kill me?" She _looks_ at me. I close me eyes for a moment, bracing myself. "There were only five mistakes."

When I open my eyes again, her jaw is open. Then, her face crumples and she _glares _at me again. "I hate you," she repeats. "I've been doing this for hours, Sam!"

I squint at her. "I'm sorry?"

For a moment I'm totally sure she's going to _reem _me. Then, after a few moments, she just exhales. "I deserve that for the dishes," she says eventually, the anger fading. "God, I'm so tired. At least now I know I can sleep."

When we both go to bed, she falls asleep in this strange position with her arms tangled over her head. I roll onto my back and smile at the ceiling.

Living with Lara is just so much fun.

* * *

**Anonymous asked: Could you write a drabble where Sam and Lara have a cute conversation about what their lives would be like in a parallel universe where they're a domestic couple? Pretty please? D: - Sam (POV)/Lara - SFW**

* * *

Okay, so it's not really so much the mud that bothers me. I mean, I voluntarily slather myself in that stuff at dayspas – it's supposed to be really good for your skin, right? I've narrowed it down to a combination of running _everywhere_, crouching in God knows what bushes that are probably full of all sorts of bugs and carrying all Lara's extra ammo. I feel like a girl-sized backpack sometimes.

So this time, we're in Somalia and there are all these rebels _everywhere _and I have seriously no idea who're the good guys and who're the bad guys. There's sand in _everything_, no matter how much I drink I'm still hot and thirsty. To make everything just a million times worst, I'm _sunburnt. _

"Can you pass me the binoculars?" Lara says, crouching around a corner and waving her hand at me like I'm her butler.

I sigh, and then look around in my pack for them. "You know, I have this fantasy where you're not some super human weapon, but you're just a normal archaeologist who spends all their time bitching about other academics and stressing about finding funding."

Lara glances back at me. "I have a fantasy where you hand me the binoculars before we're spotted and shot to death," she says glibly. When I give them to her, she spends a good five minutes looking through them at whatever and I wonder what all the rush was for.

"What would you do, do you think?" I ask her, thinking about it. "Like, if we found Yamatai and it was just this boring island with some old relics on it. What do you think life would be like now?"

"I think I'd have given up turning Alex down and just married him to shut him up." She glances back at me. Whatever I'd been thinking must have shown on my face, because she smiles at me. "Kidding," she says, and goes back to looking through the binoculars.

"Do you think we would have gotten together?" It's actually kind of an interesting question. "If that whole Sun Queen thing didn't happen?"

She takes her bow off her back, threads an arrow through it and takes her sweet time with it stretched before finally releasing it. I hear the unmistakable thud of it hitting human flesh, and wince. She doesn't even flinch and already has another one strung. "I thought you said you were after me for ages before Yamatai?" she says with the feather of the arrow next to her lips, and then releases it again. Someone else drops.

I shrug. "I think we would have. At some point I would have gotten sick of waiting, gotten really drunk and just gone, 'To hell with it!'."

She has the binoculars up again. "There's your answer, then," she says, but she doesn't sound very engaged in the conversation. I take her arm, and she bends back around the corner and looks at me.

"This is important," I say. "Like, I think we need to talk about this."

Her eyebrows are up. "Right now?" she says, glancing towards the corner again. "There are at least two still left, and they all have assault rifles." When she sees my expression, she chuckles and sits back against the wall. "Okay. You want to know if I'd have gotten involved with you if Yamatai hadn't happened?" I nod. She gives the question good consideration. "I don't know," she says honestly. "I don't know if I'd have been as open to it."

I shift from kneeling to sitting back against the rough sandstone wall beside her. "It's so strange to think about it," I decide. "I mean, on one hand it would be _so _awesome to not have sand in my underwear and for my nose to not be peeling. Also, that shrapnel in my arm that keeps setting off the scanning things at airports. On the other hand, I get to hit that." I give her a cheeky grin. "Tough decision."

"Well, I'll probably retire one day," Lara says. "Then you can 'hit that' _and_ be clean and comfortable."

I snort. "Yeah, I can totally imagine it. You won't quit until you're, like, a hundred and then we'll be too old to enjoy it."

She's smiling at the thought. "I bet when we're a hundred you'll still look like you're fifteen. And I'll been all old and wrinkly and I'll have so many holes in me I'll look like an old withered slice of swiss cheese."

"I'd still eat you."

_That_ makes her cringe. "Oh, God, Sam!" she says, smacking my arm. "_Too far!_"

I'm laughing. "Sorry," I say, but it's not true at all.

"What about _you_?" she says, looking sideways at me. "I bet you'll still be sexting me when your thumbs are so full of arthritis you can hardly bend them."

Just as she says that, two guys in combat gear come barreling around the corner and look just as surprised to see us as we are them. Fortunately, surprise does really great things to Lara, and before I can even figure out what's going on they're both lying dead at our feet, bleeding into the sand. Lara is still crouching there with a magnum in her hand.

One of the bodies is twitching. It's gross. We both stare at it. When it's clear there aren't more of them coming, Lara finally relaxes and I try and wipe some of the bad guy blood off my bare legs. That's gross, too. Who knows what bad guy germs they have.

Lara has the binoculars up again, so I guess our conversation is over. Not that having it while staring at two freshly dead guys is that appealing, anyway.

I take out my phone and tap away at it while she's busy. She doesn't notice, so when hers buzzes she looks surprised and checks it immediately, reading the message aloud. "'_Hey sexy, what are you wearing right now…?'." _She gives me a look. "I hope 'the blood of my enemies' is enough of a turn on for you," she says, and then gestures to me. "Come on, the coast is clear, we can probably make it back to the Jeep."

I follow her, like always.

* * *

**Anonymous asked: I didn't expect you to actually write that prompt about Lara doing errands XD I was trying to make the most boring prompt possible. I was even thinking about adding Lara doing her taxes or something like that.**

I can do that, too. I'm also overdue for writing some crackfic, aren't I?

**TAX TIME – Sam, Lara - SFW**

* * *

Lara had been staring at the same paragraph on her screen for a good twenty minutes. She'd known it was going to be a difficult feat to try and fit three references into the same sentence, but it just had to be done. She was already over the word limit.

At the entrance to the flat the main door opened and closed, and someone was humming Ke$ha and then quietly yelling at themselves for it. "Do _not_ let me sing that," Sam told Lara as she wandered into the living room. "Not ever." She dropped a foolscap-sized envelope onto the table beside Lara. "Oh, hey, this came for you."

Lara frowned at it. She hadn't been expecting anything, had she? She turned it over to read the return address. Maybe one of the universities in London had— "—OH MY GOD," she shrieked, and then flung it across the room.

Sam looked alarmed. "What is it?" she asked, backing away from where Lara had thrown it, just in case.

"You don't want to know." Lara slowly edged into the doorway. "Don't go near it without me," she told Sam sternly, and then disappeared into her bedroom. She spent a good several minutes turning her room upside down before ducking her head back into the room Sam was in. "Have you seen my Magnums?"

Sam stared at her. "I'm guessing you don't mean the condoms, right?" Lara _looked_ at her, and she shook her head. "I don't touch your stuff," she said, and Lara gave her another look. "Okay, I totally do, but I haven't touched your guns."

Lara made a frustrated noise and then marched into the kitchen and came back with an enormous steak knife. She held it in a Psycho grip as she carefully approached the envelope.

"What's inside?" Sam asked, her back flat against the wall. "Is it magic?"

"_Worse_," Lara said, very gingerly taking the corner of and holding it at arms' length, escorting it across the room and depositing it beside her laptop. Then, she carefully slipped the tip of the knife under the lip of the envelope and roughly _hacked it open_.

Sam _screamed._ Lara turned around to blink at her. "I'm sorry," Sam said. "It just seemed like screaming would be appropriate there."

"You will be _actually _screaming in a minute," Lara said, tipping the contents of the envelope out all over the surface of the table. "You don't know what it is, do you?" Sam swallowed and shook her head. "Don't you know what time of year it is? And what happens at that time of year…?"

Recognition dawned on Sam's face. It _couldn't_ be. "_No_," she breathed. "No— it feels like just yesterday that we just finished last years'…"

Lara had a dark expression on her face. "Well, believe it." She picked up one of the thick wads of paper. "Here," she said. "Do something with this…"

Sam inched over and accepted the paper from Lara, flipping over a single sheet reading a single word before clamping her eyes shut. She held it back at Lara. "I can't do it," she said, shaking her head stiffly. "I just can't. _You_ do it!"

Lara pushed it back towards her. "We're in this together!" she said. "Help me!"

Sam just looked at the wad of paper in her shaking hands for a few seconds, and then made an attempt to read it again. On every page there were so many lines and numbers and empty fields and it all swum around together like alphabet soup. "I… I don't understand any of this," Sam said, flipping page after page of incoherent numerobabble. "I don't understand _any_ of it, Lara! What's a…" she leaned closer to the page, "'capital gain'?" she asked, and then kept reading that paragraph for it to only keep descending further into language that just _couldn't_ be English. "Lara! Please, what's does this even mean? What's _a negative gear_ and why would anyone use it? _Why can't we use a positive one?_"

Just when Sam thought it couldn't get any worse, Lara handed her a pen. Sam looked at it, her stomach dropping. _Oh, God. _

Lara was wearing a determined expression, but Sam could see there was genuine fear on her face. "We'll get through it," Lara said, and then put a steadying hand on Sam's shoulder. "We'll get through this together."

* * *

_**"Can you do a story where Lara goes to the store to buy stuff, then goes home and pays some bills, then watches tv for a while and then goes to sleep. Then the next day she goes to the DMV to get her drivers license renewed, followed by going to the post office to get some stamps"**_

Yes. Yes, I can.

**A Day in the Life - Lara, Sam, SFW**

Pre-slash. Again.

* * *

I put my camera on the bookshelf in hallway of our apartment, checked the frame and then stepped into it. My hair probably looked crap, but whatever, right? Part of reality TV is that not everyone looks great all the time. It makes it way more accessible and real if people look like they just woke up. And since it was like six-twenty-five in the morning on a Saturday, I was feeling _pretty_ accessible and real at that moment.

"Hey, guys," I said, smiling at the lens. "Wow, I sound like a smoker. This what I get for waking up at the crack of dawn, I guess. Anyway, I got a stack of emails and messages asking what Lara's _really _like." I had a couple of them open and ready on my iPad, so I unlocked it and read off the screen. "'_Dear Sam_', says one, '_We all know Lara Croft is this totally badass chick who can wreck whole entire armies of men. How does she even do that? What's her secret? Does she have some serious training regime? What does she eat for breakfast? It would be cool to see what a day in her life is like'_." I put the iPad down. "Well, folks," I grinned at the lens, "you demand and I deliver. Presenting a Day in the Life of Lara Croft."

I'd probably put a title on the screen right then, I thought.

I'd chosen six twenty-five for a reason, because on Saturdays Lara always gets up at six thirty to run on the treadmill. Just as I lifted the camera off the shelf, the door to Lara's room opened and she emerged in her gym gear. I pointed the camera at her. "Good morning, _Tomb Raider_."

She rolled her eyes over the camera at me and continued down the corridor. "Sam," she said neutrally. "What are you doing awake before midday?"

"Just ignore me like usual, okay?" I told her as I followed her. "Just act totally normal."

She glanced up at me as she plugged in the treadmill. "Okay…" she said suspiciously, and then she stepped up onto it and put her headphones in her ears.

"Lara used to run in the park," I narrated. "But after the whole _Tomb Raider_ thing, way too many people stop her for autographs and she can't get a proper run in. So she bought a treadmill and now she runs up here."

Being used to having cameras pointed at her, Lara just pressed a few buttons on the treadmill and then took off. While she was busy jogging away, I put the camera on the TV unit and went and got myself some cereal.

Then, I stood and ate it while I watched her. She looked pretty hot, I thought, examining her. Male viewers would totally want to see way better shots of her in skin-tight lycra. I abandoned my cereal and went to pick up the camera, walking over to her with it. I had her in a mid-shot when a bead of sweat ran down right in between her boobs. "Oh, wow," I said. "That's like porn, right there." I zoomed in on it.

Lara must have had the volume way down on her iPod, because she gave me a really strange look. "Why do I feel like you're ogling me?" she asked.

"You should have worn that crop-top thing," I said absently, checking out the hypnotic bounce of her cleavage in slow-motion. "For viewers, I mean."

"Right," she said slowly, and then upped the speed of the belt.

When she was done she wouldn't actually let me into the bathroom with her, even though I promised her I wouldn't put any shots in final cut that showed anything. "Out!" she told me, and closed the door in my face. Fortunately, she'd forgotten to take clothes with her into the bathroom, so I just camped by the door until she came out in a towel. It was worth it, because I got a great close-up of her giving me a _look_ through the lens, and then filmed her bare legs as they walked down the corridor and into her bedroom.

I turned the camera on myself. "Did you see those muscles?" I asked the camera. "I know, right? But she _always _wears long pants so that's probably the most you'll ever see of them."

While she was getting dressed, I rushed into my room to quickly throw some clothes on, as well. When I was done, I caught her trying to furtively do up her boots and disappear out the door without me.

I pointed the camera at myself. "Lara thinks she's really good at sneaking around," I said. "Hint: she's not. I always catch her."

Lara was in the middle of zipping up a boot. "It's completely not my fault," she said, trying to defend herself. "You always know exactly when I would rather not be seen and then you pop up out of nowhere. I'm sure there's some ninja in your bloodline."

"Nope!" I said cheerfully, still filming her. "Just pure freelance journalist. So," I said, changing the subject. "Where are we going now?"

"_We_ are going on a perilous and terribly exciting journey to Sainbury's." She stood up, grinning. "I need tomatoes."

I laughed at what she'd said as she put on her coat. "Oh, come on!" I told her. "Put some drama into it!" I pointed the lens at myself. "She's on an _epic_ _quest_ for some organic tomatoes. They're the final ingredient she needs, and when she has them in her possession the cooking can begin!" She was chuckling with me as I went back to filming her. "So, are you making pasta napoletana? Wait, let me rephrase: oh, my God, can you _please _make us pasta napoletana for lunch."

"Just 'Lara' is fine," she said with a smirk. "And I might. Are you going to put on your coat?"

I looked down at my t-shirt, and then outside at the rain. "Oh, right," I said, and hurriedly pulled it on so I could follow her.

Not that this'll come as a giant surprise given that we lived in England, but it was overcast and raining. Lara normally uses this really tame black umbrella. Fortunately, it was hidden in my room that week because there was far too much entertainment value in watching her carry around my old Sanrio one with _Kero Kero Keroppi_ print all over it.

I weathered being rained on for the sole purpose of getting a good shot of the _Tomb Raider_ holding it. She glanced over her shoulder at me. "This is _not_ my umbrella," she told the camera.

"Yeah," I said. "Lara's umbrella is blood red and shoots out of the barrel of a shotgun."

Sainsbury's did in fact have the epic organic tomatoes. "Hold them up… yeah, like that," I told Lara, who looked shyly around us at all the people who were trying to pretend they weren't watching. "Behold!" I said, although it barely came out because I was giggling too much. "The tomatoes we have been searching for!" I looked over the LCD. "Say something like that."

She crossed her arms nervously. "Don't you think it would be more in character for me to dig through the whole pile there and take some out from the bottom? I'm an archaeologist."

"But you're not _that kind_ of archaeologist," I pointed out. "At least, not anymore. Hey, I know, we should have brought your guns in here. You could have just laid into all the fruit that was blocking the tomato stand and then heroically rescued them from the carnage." I thought about it as we went to go pay. "Actually, you know, that would be totally hilarious. Especially if you could do it with a straight face."

She'd already put her tomatoes on the counter and was trying to not look sideways at a picture of her on a gossip rag next to the checkout. I filmed the cover and then picked it up. "_'Lonely Lara Croft'_," I read aloud in faux-serious voice. "'_"how do I get a man when they're all scared of me?': her tragic secret'."_

Lara scoffed. "I never said that," she told me, as if there was some off-chance I'd believe it.

I rolled my eyes at her. "Sweetie, I work in media," I reminded her. "I live this crap." I flipped to the story and had a brief glance through it. There was some complete fiction about her being desperate for love and turned down by every man she approached. "Please, as if any of these guys wouldn't give it to you in a heartbeat," I said, looking at the grainy pictures of the men Lara had supposedly been turned down by. "Someone should tell _The Sun_ you're completely frigid and don't want a boyfriend anyway."

She smacked me with her purse and the frame shook. "'Busy' is not the same as 'frigid'."

"Uh, hi," the checkout guy said to us. I panned over to him; he was probably about eighteen and his face was as red as the tomatoes he was weighing. "H-How are you today?"

I waved the paper at him. "You'd better watch out," I told him. "According to this Lara is desperate and horny. No man is safe."

I hadn't thought it was possible for him to get any redder, but I was wrong. The color came out just great on the screen.

Lara gave him a fiver and took the tomatoes, glaring at me. "Oh, my God, Sam!" she said, blushing a little herself, "that's enough! Leave the poor man alone." She accepted the change from him. "Sorry," she said.

"I love your movies," he blurted out instead of saying 'thank you'.

"Thanks," Lara said, and then turned to glare at me again because I was giggling again.

Back at home, Lara cornered me in the kitchen. "I'm not making that pasta unless you promise not to go around talking about my love life," she said. "As if the papers don't speculate enough already on it."

I put my hands up. "Okay, I get it," I said, because I did. I couldn't leave it alone, though, because it was too funny. "You're right. The truth would probably be pretty boring. I mean, who wants to read a story about the great Lara Croft's _actual _love life?" I tried to keep a straight face. "Probably no one cares that you're left-handed."

She accidentally smacked the back of her head on the cupboard she'd been reaching into. "_Sam_!" she yelled at me as she stood up, rubbing the back of her head. "I told you that in confidence! It had better not end up on telly or on YouTube somewhere!"

I hopped up onto the kitchen bench, swinging my heels against one of the cupboards. "Yeah, yeah," I said, taking a cookie out of the jar and holding it between my lips while I fiddled with the settings on my camera. "Don't worry. I'll just laugh over that privately to myself sometimes." I took a bite and put the rest of the cookie on the counter, swallowing quickly and going back to my project. "Here's a little known fact about Lara Croft: she can actually cook."

Lara snorted, but she still didn't look that pleased with me. "I can cook _pasta_," she said. "That's hardly gourmet."

"And that udon thing," I reminded her, forgetting the name of it. "That's awesome, too."

Lara rolled up her sleeves and set to work on the tomatoes while the water was boiling. "It only seems like I can cook because _you_ can't make toast," she said. "Or even a hard-boiled egg."

It wasn't my fault Dad had a housekeeper and Mom didn't really eat. "All lies," I declared. "You're just trying to hide what a great housewife you'd make." I took another bite of my cookie and held the camera away so people wouldn't hear me chewing. "Besides, who needs cooking skills when you have a microwave?"

She walked over to the fridge, probably to get onions or something out, and stood there for a moment. "Shit," she said, removing a heart-shaped magnet and taking a bill off the front of it. "The electricity was due yesterday. Can you pay it? We'll forget if we just leave it here."

"What, like now?"

She looked pretty serious, so I hopped down off the bench and took it from her, sitting down at the table. Well, people _did _want to know about Lara's ordinary life, and there wasn't anything much more domestic than paying household expenses. I panned the camera over it. "This is our electric bill," I said. "Pretty riveting stuff, huh? The only exciting thing is this," I zoomed in and focused on my name, which was apparently '_Samantha Nahsimura', "_Someone spelt my name wrong again. Now _that's _news. Only the hard stories here, people." I paid the bill using my cell.

We ate our lunch in front of the TV, despite the fact there was basically nothing on. In the end, we ended up watching reruns of Oprah from that narrow window of time when she was really thin. Apparently back then it was revolutionary and not hopelessly mainstream to be 'in touch with your spiritual self'.

I filmed Lara's reaction to that stuff. It wasn't that Lara didn't believe in magic or anything – I mean, how could she not, right? – but all this soul-searching spirituality-religion stuff was _so_ not her thing. It showed on her face.

"So, tell me, Lara," I said in my Serious Oprah Voice. "Tell me when you first discovered your inner self. I myself was fourteen. I didn't even know what it meant to ask myself that question."

Her expression made me laugh. "Why does everything you say sound dirty?"

"Probably because you haven't gotten any in a million years," I shot back at her. "I actually _wasn't_ being dirty. I was asking the deep questions."

Even on the tiny LCD I could see she didn't look like she believed me. "The deep questions," she repeated. "Yes, I'm sure _your viewers_ are just so interested in hearing about what God means to me and whether or not I believe in the afterlife, or reincarnation, or whatever it is she's on about on telly."

She had a point. "Hah," I said. "You're right. The viewers are probably way more interested in what you're looking for in a man, so they can turn themselves into that."

She was still squinting at the TV. "Better break it to them that I'm not looking for a man," she said, and then panicked and added, "right now, that is." She turned a similar shade of red to the guy at Sainsbury's.

I laughed. "Whoa, you _do_ hate talking about your love life on camera," I said, getting a close up of those flushed cheeks. "That is one _hardcore_ blush."

"Shut up," she said, and then stood up and took our plates into the kitchen. While she put them in the dishwasher, I lay down across the whole length of the couch and reviewed some of the footage. This stuff was gold, seriously. People were just going to think she was the cutest thing ever. And those shots of her in a towel? If anyone wasn't totally crushing on her before they watched the video I was about to make, they would be at the end of it.

When Lara came back into the living room, there was no space for her on the couch. "Right," she said. "I suppose it's the floor for me, then?" She came and stood at the edge of the couch. "Come on, shove over."

"There's totally room," I told her, thinking she could probably sit at the other end under my legs. I lifted them.

"There's no table down there and I haven't finished my juice," she said. "And I won't fit up this end unless you particularly fancy me sitting on your f—" she inhaled sharply and didn't finish that sentence.

_That_ made me laugh. "On my face, you mean?" I waggled my eyebrows at her, enjoying her discomfort. "I'm not sure _I'm_ the one who's supposed to 'fancy' that." Just to completely unsettle her, I hooked a hand around her thigh and pretended to try and pull her down on top of me. Her expression was priceless and, literally, my sides hurt from laughing at it. "You are _such_ a prude," I told her, sitting up and scooting over so she could sit down next to the table.

She didn't say anything, she just picked up the remote and channel surfed for what felt like forever. I had been giggling to myself and filming her when I realized there was absolutely no trace of humor on her face. She also was deliberately not looking at me. That was not a good sign.

I switched the camera off. "Hey," I said gently. "Look, I'm sorry if I go too hard on you about the whole no boyfriend thing. If it really bothers you, I can—"

"No…" she said, interrupting me. "It's not that."

"It's not?"

She looked at the remote control in her lap. For like a second or two I thought maybe she was going to say something really serious, but she just smiled. "I guess I'm still just getting used to this whole fame thing," she said, smiling wryly at me.

It didn't seem like something she'd be all weird about, but I guessed I probably didn't get what it was like for her. My family had been in the spotlight basically since I was born. "So you're not angry with me?"

She shook her head and patted her lap. "You want a head massage to prove it?"

What a question; I couldn't get on the floor fast enough. I sat with my back to the couch between her knees and then looked over my head at her, upside down. "I can film this, right?"

She shrugged, and then starting working on my scalp. This was _so_ awesome. I turned the LCD around so that I could get both my face and Lara's far above mine in the shot. "It is, like, the coolest thing ever to have a white friend who has Asian Hair Envy," I said. She yanked a lock of said hair.

While I had my eyes closed and was enjoying it, it occurred to me Lara had been pretty weird since that whole store thing and I second-guessed her being angry at me about teasing her. I had to stop messing with her, I decided, even though it was completely hilarious. Lara probably let me do it because we were best friends, but maybe it actually wasn't okay. I made a face. I hated the thought that I might actually be hurting her.

"Lara," I began, looking over my head again.

"You need to pluck your eyebrows," she told me cryptically.

I made a face. "I know," I said. "I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon. Anyway, I'm sorry I lay into you about the love life stuff. I am. I know you're not interested in dating now. The whole media being obsessed with your love life just makes you an easy target."

She watched the TV for a while before she swallowed and looked down at me. "Some things are just really hard for me to talk about," she said eventually. "But, yes, I'm not interested in anything to do with men at the moment."

I realized a little too late that the camera was still on, so I looked down at it again. "Did you hear that, boys?" I asked it. "You're out of luck. Lara's a career woman."

She sighed heavily. "I have that lecture to plan for Cambridge," she said, changing the subject. "I should probably think about actually doing it instead of spending all day procrastinating with you."

When she stood up, I wrapped my arms around her calves. "Hey, who said I was done with you?" I asked her, but she just smiled faintly at me and wandered off into her bedroom. I heard the door shut.

I stared at the doorway for a moment, and then picked up the camera. "Guess that's it for today," I told the lens. "When she shuts the door, it's, like, _hours_ before she comes out again."

She actually didn't come out for the rest of the day. Not for anything. Usually at like six or seven she got hungry and would wander into the kitchen and maybe cook us something, but not today. That only confirmed what I'd suspected about her being kind of upset with me.

I knocked on her door at about eight, but there was no answer. I had this split second where I imagined something awful like that she'd hung herself from the ceiling fan or been shot to death in her office chair, but I still managed to _not _burst through her door. I just opened it gently and peeked inside. It was dark and it took a couple of seconds for my eyes to adjust. When they did, I saw her curled up asleep on top of her blankets, nestled among a broad spread of paper, books and her laptop which had already died. I couldn't help it, I had to get that scene on film. It was the most adorable thing on the planet.

Afterwards, I sat down on the edge of her bed and put a hand on her side. She stirred, and then opened her eyes, blinking tiredly at me. "I must have fallen asleep…" she said. "Wow, what time is it? I'll never get this thing finished."

I patted her hip. "Lara, your lecture isn't for like two weeks. Take the evening off for once. Just relax." She rolled onto her back and in the process knocked some of the books onto the floor. "See? It's a sign not to do any more writing tonight."

She laughed. "Okay, okay," she said eventually, and then something occurred to her. "You just filmed all of that, didn't you?"

I winced. "Would you totally kill me if I said yes?"

She laughed once. "I think I'd wonder who was on the edge of my bed if you _hadn't_."

I watched her rub her eyes. "C'mon. I'll tuck you in."

"What am I, five years old?" She laughed, but put her laptop on her desk and then crawled under the covers and let me do it, anyway. "I still have my bra on," she said after I'd carefully arranged the blankets around her. "I should probably take it off, but I'm just so comfortable." She paused. "Shit. You're filming."

I smirked. "Yup." I lay down on top of the covers next to her. "So what's on the cards for you tomorrow, Miss Croft?" I asked, turning the camera to face us both. "Isn't tomorrow night garbage night? I bet everyone's looking forward to seeing your big strong muscles flex as you take our heavy garbage bag down the stairs."

"There's that, and I need to get my driver's license renewed," she said. "I'm sure _that_ will be an exciting episode. Also I'm out of stamps."

I snorted. "Stamps. Who even sends _post_ anymore."

I felt a poke through the blankets. "It's Christmas soon. I just really like the whole idea of sending real cards to people." She snuggled deeper into the mattress. "Since you're here," she joked, "do you want to read me a story? I'm halfway through '_Sing Me Home_'."

I looked from her to the lens. "And there you have it, folks," I told the camera. "The terrifying Lara Croft: asking me to read her a bedtime story. Next week: I sing her a lullaby and make her a glass of warm milk."

"You'd burn the milk. I can see it now."

I switched off the camera. "I'm cutting that last part," I told her. "I would totally _not_ burn the milk. Do you need anything else, or should I just leave you alone now?"

She looked for a second like she was going to ask for something, but she changed her mind and shook her head. "No. I'm really comfy. Thanks."

I tried to figure out what she'd been about to ask for. I had been about to guess it was her Teddy Bear, but I caught sight of his little ears poking up above the blankets. If it wasn't that, maybe she was hungry but afraid of the atrocities I might commit against any food I tried to make for her? "Are you hungry?" I asked, anyway.

She shook her head. "It's fine," she said. "Go edit your video."

Wow, she knew me really well. "Okay," I said. "I promise I won't put that stuff in you didn't want me to."

"Thanks," she said, "it means a lot to me to know I can trust you."

She touched my hand, and it gave me butterflies. I looked down at our hands for a moment, confused about it. I supposed it was just really nice to have Lara opening up to me, because she didn't do that often. I felt kind of special being the one she told things to, because she was the only person in the whole world who really knew the first thing about me.

I stood up. "Sleep well," I said, and then went to go turn on my Macbook Pro. I was going to make the most awesome video ever, seriously. I had this idea about cutting some footage of Lara shooting and jump and blowing things up with that sweet image of her asleep on her bed.

Seriously, if anyone _wasn't_ in love with Lara, I was totally going to fix that up right now.

* * *

"**Can you like make a thing Where Lara walks in on Sam duct-taping the ends of her clothes to her body to make herself more aerodynamic for their next expedition like a hunter from left 4 dead" – Sam, Lara (POV) - SFW**

Yes.

* * *

The hotel room actually turned out to be a large art-deco-style apartment. It was a little stuffy inside, so I opened the big bay windows and settled down in an armchair next to them with the iPad. Sam had disappeared into the bathroom to sample the complementary toiletries and enjoy the enormous shower. It meant the telly was off for once and that was a relief.

The article was actually pretty interesting; it was written by a young student of archaeology who was studying at Cambridge but specializing in Australian mythology. It lacked the long, drawn-out sentences I normally had to struggle through and read very easily from beginning to end. Despite that, the content wasn't that interesting to me. I did note some similarities between Aboriginal mythology and the Maori stories Jonah started on about when we were drunkenly inventing stories for his many tattoos. Even the memory of sloshed Jonah imitating various deities wasn't enough to rescue myths about zillions of rivers and mountains, though.

I reached the end of the article and closed it.

It was then that I realised I never normally managed to reach the end of anything without being interrupted. Or without needed to focus on ignoring the sound of women shrieking at each other on reality shows, or without Sam leaning over my shoulder, telling me she was bored and asking me what I was reading. It was suspiciously quiet, and showers didn't last _that_ long.

Where was Sam?

I looked over toward the door dividing the living area and the bedroom and en suite. I thought I could hear the sounds of something straining to do something and not liking the result. The bed creaked, and then I heard something solid be put down on a flat surface. What on earth was she doing?

I stood up to investigate, discarding the iPad on the cushion behind me.

As I rounded the corner, I spotted Sam sitting on the edge of the bed with a roll of duct tape and a pair of scissors, wrapping it all around the ends of her sleeves and pants. She even had some around her elbows and knees. She saw me in the doorway and grinned, standing up to show me her work.

I just stared at her. "Have you been watching the Japanese fashion channel again?"

She gave me a look. "Actually I was watching this cool documentary on Parkour, you heard of it?" I shook my head. "It was about these guys who created an obstacle course out of a construction site in central Chicago. They were doing all these amazing tricks as they ran through it, it was awesome." She was talking animatedly again, the way she always did when she was excited. That, plus the duct tape on her wrists… what a sight. "Anyway, one of them was saying he could get much higher when he wore tighter clothes and taped the ends to his body. Something about aerodynamics."

I watched her. "So you taped your ankles and wrists to be aerodynamic?" She didn't correct me, so I pointed out, "Sam, you wear the tightest clothes on the planet, I swear you're more aerodynamic than those swimmers wearing those banned bodysuits."

She stood up and did a little spin for me to display her handywork. "Yeah, but now I'm even _more_ aerodynamic. Maybe now I'll be able to do those vault-things you do to get on top of buildings."

"You could just do some push-ups and lunges, you know."

She sat back down on the bed. "Yeah, but this duct tape does two things," she said. I waited for her to continue. "You're always saying to put practicality over fashion, especially when we go on expeditions. And you know how I was telling you about those bird-eating spiders Australia has?" She swung her taped ankles up onto the bed. "Well," she said, looking smug and showing me nothing could get into them. "When you have them crawling all over the inside of your cargos, _you're_ going to wish you were as aerodynamic as_ I_ am."

* * *

**Trash & Treasure - Lara, Sam (prompt) - SFW**

For **Pugletto**, who is art-trading with me for Lara/Natla art. She said, "**Write me a pugfic**!" The tacos are also for Pug, but she shouldn't eat them unless she wants hepatitis.

* * *

"I swear it used to be around here somewhere," Sam was saying, thumbing through a map on her iPhone. She stopped on the corner, looking around and then back at her phone. "It's supposed to be here!"

I looked about us. It was one of those awful grey days in London where it was on the cusp of raining. I kept thinking I felt raindrops on my face, but it was never enough to bother hunting around in my bag for my brollie. Despite the fact it wasn't really raining, the wind had picked up and was blowing right through my scarf. I really would much rather have been home inside than hunting around in the dodgy end of the city for a shop, even if it was an antique and rare bookstore.

"It probably closed down," I said. "Don't worry, I'm sure they have a shop online. If not, maybe we could try Amazon."

Sam walked purposefully up to a traffic light, walking around the pole and looking up it. She made a frustrated noise. "Apple Maps _never_ works in London," she said. "These maps are hopeless. I'm going Android next time." I must have been looking at her blankly, because she leaned back towards me, showing me the screen on her iPhone, and then pointed upwards. "It doesn't even have us on the right street!" A couple of small droplets landed on her screen and she wiped them off and took my hand. "Come on," she said, leading me around the corner.

Because of the weather, there was no one around the area. I would actually have preferred to not be around there, either: I was in the middle of writing an article for a journal and it was so close to being finished. I wanted to go back home, turn on the heater and finish it. It was so cold out here that I would have put my hands inside the sleeves of my jumper if Sam hadn't been leading me by one of them.

"Perhaps we should go home," I suggested. "I think it's going to rain."

Sam snorted. "If we stayed home because it was raining in this country, we'd _never_ leave the house."

As she said that, a big fat drop of rain got me in the eye. It was closely followed by several more. Before we knew it, they were covering the street. Sam shoved her phone in her pocket. "Did you bring the umbrella?"

I nodded. "But I don't want to open my bag with my phone and the iPad in it." We were beside a laneway that backed onto some little restaurants that weren't open yet, and there was an awning over one of their doorways. "There!" I said, this time being the one to drag Sam underneath it.

We squished into the doorway together while I unzipped my bag and felt around in it. The doorway was beside a huge rubbish bin, and it smelt like a mixture of week-old yum cha and stale taco meat. There was even wilted chopped lettuce around the base of the bin.

"Do you hear that?" Sam was saying while I was trying to figure out which bloody pocket I'd put the compact brollie in.

"I can't hear anything except the rain," I told her, unzipping the front pocket.

She was giving me a strange look while she listened. "No, I swear to god I can hear something in that bin."

She rushed out from under the awning over to the big rubbish bin, but she couldn't get the lid off it by herself. I watched her struggle with it for a few seconds while the rain pelted down on her and then felt awfully guilty for letting her try to do that on her own. Dropping my bag in the doorway, I jogged over to her, bracing my shoulder against the lid until it creaked in protest and swung open. With the lid off, it smelt even worse.

Ignoring that, Sam put a boot on the steel frame and stepped up, leaning over inside it. "There's something moving in here!" she told me, and starting tossing all manner of rubbish out. I watched a half-cut lettuce, some stale taco shells and a few empty take-away boxes fly past me as I stood beside her, getting soaked. So much for bothering to straighten my hair this morning.

"This is London," I reminded her. "It's probably rats. Or maybe the pigeons have finally learnt how to infiltrate rubbish bins."

She stopped rifling through the rubbish and was completely still. "Oh, my God," she said after a moment of silence, but I couldn't see what she was looking at. "Okay, it's not a spy pigeon." She looked down at me. "You'll never guess what's in here!"

"Salmonella?"

She rolled her eyes and looked excitedly back into the bin. "Come on!" she said in a baby voice. "Come on, come here, boy!"

What on was she…

I put the toe of my boot on the framing myself and climbed up next to her. She had her arms outstretched. On the other side of the bin, just out of reach, a tiny little head was poking out of a chewed-up garbage bag. I couldn't tell what it was at first from the shape of its face, but then it sneezed.

It was a _puppy. _It had a really strange face, one of those flat-noses with bulging eyes and too much skin. I felt kind of bad thinking a tiny puppy was ugly, but I couldn't help it. It was ugly, but it was also little and helpless. "Is that a pug?" I asked her.

"Uh, huh!" she said, and managed to coax it over the debris and assorted rubbish into her arms. I then stepped back off the side of the bin and let her hand it to me as she climbed down herself.

It was cuter when I could see all of it, but there was still something horribly surprised about its expression. Its stay in the bin had also left it smelling _awful. _"Who would throw a puppy into a rubbish bin?" I asked, brushing a piece of soggy tomato off its back. I checked the inside of one of its ears. "No microchip."

Sam was dancing around opposite me, desperate for me to give the puppy back to her. "Isn't it _adorable_?" she asked me. "It's so tiny!"

I passed it to her, and she received it from me with the same level of care as if she were being given a newborn baby. "Hello, little guy!" she said. "You must be so scared and so cold…" She looked at me. "Can you give me your scarf?"

I narrowed my eyes at her, but did as she told me. She wrapped it all around the puppy and cradled it in her arms. I was so completely wet through anyway I supposed it didn't really matter that now I was wet _and_ had a cold neck.

She walked back under the awning, jogging the puppy as if it was her own child. It was actually really endearing. I just stood next to the bin in the rain and watched her; I knew what was coming next.

"He's _so_ adorable," Sam was saying and when she looked up at me, I could already see guilt. "Lara…"

"Sam…" I said neutrally, wondering how long it would take her to actually ask the question.

She winced. "I know we're not supposed to have animals in your apartment, but he's _so tiny_…" she said, "and it's not like we can't hide him anywhere…"

I crossed my arms and _looked_ at her.

"We're moving soon, anyway!" she said. "Please…?"

It was useless arguing with Sam when she'd made up her mind. As soon as I'd passed that puppy to her I'd known it was going to end up coming home with us. I sighed. Despite its really odd face and tubby little body it _was_ cute. "Alright," I said. "But before you let him loose in the flat let me clean up all the periodicals I've got all over the floor."

Sam ventured out into the rain again to throw her other arm around me and kiss my cheek. "I love you!" she announced – I'd grown familiar to hearing it every time I did something she wanted me to. She then looked back down at the puppy. "Did you hear that, little guy? You've got a new home!" She dragged me back under the awning. "What are we going to call him?" I'd never had a dog before, or any pets, actually. I wasn't sure she was really asking for my input anyway, because she was already looking thoughtful. "I always think it's kind of funny when you give these tiny dogs really proper names. We should give him a totally British name, something really 'posh'."

Posh? I looked down at the puppy. Its little bulging eyes stared back at me. One of them looked a bit lazy and I wasn't sure it was actually pointed at me. "My parents used to have this really proper butler when I was a little girl."

She looked up at me, some of her excitement fading. I never talked about my parents, really. Or my childhood. "Yeah?"

"His name was Winston," I said. "And he _always _wore a suit."

"Winston," Sam repeated, trying it out as she looked down at him wrapped in my scarf. "Oh, my God. That's so hilarious. _Look_ at him. He's got such a weird little face for a name like 'Winston'. We should _totally_ call him that."

When the rain eased, we left the awning and headed back to where Sam had parked. I had to drive, because Sam insisted that we couldn't wake Winston once he'd gone to sleep in her arms. As I was pulling away from the curb, I noticed a faded sign over a little single-level shop near the corner where we'd been sheltering. _Blackwells Rare Reads_, I was able to make out. It was the store Sam had been trying to find.

While we were stopped at a red light, I looked from the sign and the beautiful old leather-bound tomes in the window to Sam in the passenger seat. She was gazing adoringly at Winston as he slept – snoring. Oh, God, I thought, now I'll have _two_ snorers in my flat.

When the light turned green, I didn't mention that I'd seen the book shop. I just drove us all home.


	2. We All Have Our Demons

**"You should write a story about Lara and Sam having a baby! Maybe when you're not too busy? :)"**

* * *

Okay. This took me 29 minutes.

I'm guessing you want fluff, right? Unfortunately, the beautiful thing about prompts is I can take your lovely, sweet ideas AND TURN THEM INTO PAIN.

Post-Yamatai pre-slash/gen. Something a little different.

* * *

We all have our demons.

I'd spent a decade avoiding mine until I was forced to come face-to-face with them, a gun in my hands and many innocent lives depending on me standing strong. I'm not sure how I gauge that success, to be honest. So many people died, so many. I still wonder if I'd been able to sort my head out faster if they'd be alive. I just don't know. I'll never know, it's one of those things.

Sam had initially been pretty cheerful and optimistic, but after all the media coverage slowed down and we went back to England, she changed. She basically abandoned her flat and stopped paying the rent, and on the odd occasion when she actually came home at night, she slept on my sofa.

I don't really know what she went through at Yamatai. As awful as what happened to me was, _I_ got the chance to face down my captors and I defeated them. Sam never have that chance, she was just dragged around by Mathias and Whitman and depended on me to save her. I rescue her again, a thousand times over. But things might have been so different for her back in England if she'd saved herself.

I wanted to be there for her. She's my _best friend. _I love her with all my heart and she's basically the only family I have left. So I shared my food with her, cleaned up after her when she'd had one too many I picked her up from wherever dingy laneway she was 'partying' in.

One night I'd woken up at maybe three in the morning because I heard something happening in the living room. When I went to investigate, Sam was sitting on my couch, head in her hands and blood all up her arm. I panicked and rushed up to her, but she waved me away. "You look like a Disney Princess compared to me," she said cryptically. "I bet my dad wishes _you_ were his daughter." Later I found out that her father had got wind of the fact she'd had been evicted from her flat and called her up to have a go at her. She'd been upset, gone drinking and God knows what else, and then crashed her car into a stone fence just outside of town.

I was okay at first, but as the weeks past I realised I couldn't do it. I couldn't watch Sam destroy herself when I knew the sweet, funny and intelligent woman she really was. I tried to bring it all up with her so many times, but each time she'd find a way to dismiss me and then disappear.

It all escalated one week when she left and didn't come back for five days. She even left her phone in my kitchen. I'd been completely beside myself with worry about her, but this time I couldn't take a gun and a bow and climb up a mountain. I had to wait for a knock on my door and two policemen to escort her back inside my flat.

They were talking to me, but I didn't care what they were saying. I threw my arms around Sam and burst into tears. She didn't respond at all. She was like a zombie.

After the officers had gone, I sat her down on the sofa and went to make her a cup of team. She held it in her lap and stared blankly at it.

I was initially so happy that she was alive and okay, but when she didn't respond to anything I was saying or doing, I just got so angry with her.

"Are you listening to me?" I asked her. "I was _terrified_ that those police would knock on my door and instead of bringing you in, they'd tell me they'd found your body in a—"

"I'm fucking pregnant, okay?" She looked up from her tea.

I hadn't slept, so it took me a few seconds to process what she'd said. "What?"

She exhaled and looked back down at her tea. I had been so upset and so worked up and I found it really difficult to clear my head and step back. "Who did you…?"

She laughed humourlessly, interrupting me. "Your guess is as good as mine."

_That_ made me really angry again. Was there any way in which she _wasn't_ trying to ruin her life after I'd gone to so much trouble to save it? "You're having unprotected sex with _strangers_?"

She shrugged. "If you're going to go the whole lecture on me, can you getting it over with already? I don't care. I told Dad yesterday. You can't possibly say anything worse than he did."

God, I could imagine what her father had said. He was _really_ traditional about family, and just so careful about his reputation. Sam's behaviour was going to cause big issues for him.

I sank down on the sofa beside her, also staring at my lap. It was almost too big a bombshell to even get my head around. "I'm going to Beijing next week," I said. "What are you going to do? Didn't you sign on for that big documentary the BBC is running from August?"

She nodded slowly. "I have no fucking idea what I'm going to do," she said eventually. "Look at me." She held her arms out. There were little bruises on them; I didn't want to know how they'd got there. "I wish I could just put the whole thing on hold and worry about it next year or something."

"Are you _actually_ considering keeping it?" I didn't mean to sound so awfully judgmental, but you have to understand how she was like at that point. She was a mess, she couldn't even look after herself.

"Just look at me," she repeated. "I'm sleeping on your couch. I'm eating your food. I'm doing stupid, crazy things that are stressing you out and that's _after_ you literally saved my life. I'm totally queen of the World's Worst Friends club."

"That's not what I think about you," I said honestly.

She shook her head, sighing again. "Well, maybe not yet…" she said, and then looked up at me with this awfully intense expression.

"What?" I asked her, worried about what she was going to say.

"I think I'm about to take the cake, seriously," she said, and swallowed. "Lara, I'm going to keep it."


	3. Don't Wait Up

"**Anonymous asked: Fluff plz"**

* * *

Hah. Okay.

Don't Wait Up - Lara, Sam – SFW

Pre-Yamatai pre-slash.

Completed in 47 Minutes by Asynca.

* * *

I'd been staking out Lara's apartment for her _all day_. She took so long to get back I even got hungry and was forced to eat her 99% fat free yoghurt. While I was standing at the refrigerator with the tub in one hand and a soup spoon in the other, I had this sudden thought that maybe she'd hooked up with that guy from Civilizations after all. Aside from actually _calling_ Roth to make sure they weren't on some impulse trip to the Amazon or whatever (he was in that generation that had some weird aversion to text messaging), I just had to wait.

After like maybe ten minutes, I decided calling was okay.

Roth answered. "Hullo, Sam…" he sounded a bit confused. And he should be, because I think Lara only gave him my number for emergencies.

Well, this was kind of an emergency. Lara had been MIA for like _three hours_ now. "Hi," I said. "Is Lara with you?"

"Should she be?"

"Well, I don't know. She's been gone for _ages_. I thought maybe you knew where she went." I had another spoonful of that god-awful water-yoghurt and made a face.

"You know what she's like. She's probably just gone off searching for a periodical that's only in print."

I did know what she was like. She was usually at home whenever I wanted her to be and if not, she answered my text messages. Especially when they were _urgent_. "She didn't mention any guys lately, did she?"

Roth sighed. "Lara doesn't tell me about her love life, Sam. And I don't ask."

I scrunched my face up, half because of the yoghurt and half because of Roth not having any juicy details. "Okay, thanks," I said, and hung up.

As I did so, I heard Roth sigh again and say, "Alright, Sam… Bye."

I abandoned the refrigerator and went and lay on Lara's bed. There was no point in calling Alex, because he'd freak and launch an enormous search party for her, and there was _no way_ Lara would tell him if she were seeing someone, anyway.

While I was lying there, worrying about what Lara was secretly doing, I saw a really cute sweater hanging on the closet. It was _really_ cute.

Lara came home later that afternoon with a small shopping bag and singing aloud to her iPod as she closed the door. She nearly had a heart attack when she saw me, dumping her shopping and yanking out her earbuds. "Sam!" she said, totally busted. She then squinted at me. "Is that my new jumper?"

I looked down my front. "I'm just wearing it in for you," I said, and then went to investigate her bag. "What's in there?"

"I've been thinking about buying a carpet python, so I decided to do it."

My eyes just about jumped out of my head. "_Really?"_

She deadpanned. "No. It's groceries."

"Oh," I said. I'd quite liked the idea of the python. "Where have you been?"

She hung up her coat. "At the supermarket." When I looked like I completely didn't believe her, she added, "And you've been here the whole time, haven't you?"

"I don't think the _whole_ time," I said, thinking it was only a little bit of a lie. "I just had something really important to tell you and I wanted to tell you in person."

For a fraction of a second, she looked _really_ freaked out. "Before you say anything, would you like a brew?" she said, trying to hide that expression as she walked past me. "I have an Indian blend that's supposed to be really nice."

I didn't really get it the whole paranoid thing about the important news. "It's nothing serious," I said and then followed her into the kitchen while she filled the electric jug. "Guess what."

She gave me a look.

"_Fine_," I said. "My submission got accepted into _Royales Film Festival_. Does this call for a celebration, or what?"

_That_, she gave me a big smile for, looking suddenly far more relaxed. "That's great," she said, sounding like she genuinely meant it as she switched on the jug. "But I still don't understand why you couldn't tell me that over the phone."

I hopped up onto the kitchen bench beside the jug. "Uh, because we need to celebrate! Also I watched a YouTube video on how to fishtail braid and my hair isn't long enough." I ate a sugar cube out of the tin. "What did you think I was going to say?"

She flinched, going to the refrigerator for milk. "Never mind," she said. "It's important—" She made a frustrated noise and stood up, holding the nearly empty yoghurt container. "I thought you hated this stuff?"

"I do," I said. "But I was hungry and it was either that or the weird blue cheese that tastes like it should have been thrown out like months ago. Or years. Also you haven't told me where you were." I turned a hard stare on her. "Is it that guy from Civilizations?"

The expression she gave me kind of answered that question for itself. "No," she said. "I've already told you no. And no to that other man you think I'm interested in at The North Face, as well." She put the teabags in to soak. "I'm not going to date at the moment, so you can stop asking me about boys."

I shrugged. "I have this weird fear that one day you're going to date someone and I'm not going to find out until you're like, married to him and pregnant with his three children." At her frown, I said, "You've got to admit, you're pretty quiet on this stuff."

"I'm quiet because there's absolutely nothing to report," she said. "Do you want daily updates on that?"

I kind of did, actually. I didn't say anything about it, though. I just accepted my cup and then let her tell me all the boring details about the tea that I was drinking.

The next morning, I woke up to a text message. I rolled over, half-awake, and checked my phone. "_Just wanted to let you know that I'm lying in my bed. Alone."_

I laughed. I had intended to text her back, but I fell asleep again and woke up closer to noon and another text message. "_I'm at uni in a very boring geology tute. Also, I'm still single._"

Early afternoon, I got up and when I walked out of the shower there was another one waiting for me. "_A man just asked me what time it was. Does that mean we're dating? Y/N."_

In the late evening while I was sitting in front of my Powerbook and trying and failing to make the sound sync properly with a video I was working on, she sent another. "_I'm at home, all alone._" It was followed quickly by, "_By the way, you never braided my hair and I just washed it."_

I looked at my computer screen and the annoying track that wasn't cooperating with me. I could take a break. "Okay, _I'm coming over," _I texted back, and then thought for a second before sending another message. It was pretty funny, I decided. "'_Someone just texted me to tell me to come over. Don't wait up, I'll probably stay the night_'."

While I was trying to decide which shoes to wear, she replied. "_It makes me stupidly happy that you're talking about me for once._"

I stared at the phone for a moment with a big grin plastered across my face and with butterflies in my stomach. Wow, I needed to get a grip. Having Lara share stuff with me wasn't _that_ amazing, was it? She was my best friend, she was _supposed_ to share this love life stuff with me.

Whatever, I couldn't think about it now. I had a train to catch.


	4. Three's a Crowd 1

**_"anonymous asked: Prompt: first lara's lesbian relationship (?)"_**

**_"anonymous asked: LARA'S FIRST LESBIAN RELATIONSHIP AND SAM'S THERE BEING ALL JEALOUS :3"_**

**Three's a Crowd - Sam (POV), Lara/OC - SFW**

118 minutes

* * *

By Asynca

* * *

Okay, I feel the need to declare something here so you don't get the wrong idea: I am _totally_ okay with the fact Lara's gay. It's fine. Actually, it's better than fine, it's kind of cool. I know Lara will say I kind of freaked out when she told me; but that was _so_ _not_ what happened.

It was like a year ago. She went through this whole process of stressing about telling me for weeks where she wasn't answering her phone and she was locking her bedroom door. Then, she called this serious 'family' meeting where she sat me down at our miniature kitchen table and couldn't even make eye-contact with me. Just so you know, I'm kind of messy, and I had been expecting this whole thing was over the us living together situation. I had been expecting her to say, "Look, we're best friends, but I just can't live with you," so I'd been working myself up over it. I even wrote her a list of reasons why living with me was awesome.

When she finally blurted out, "Sam, I'm gay," I had already basically been crying. I was so surprised and so happy that she still wanted to live with me that I just bawled my eyes out from shock.

Naturally, Lara freaked out and locked herself in her room and wouldn't come out for what felt like a year (but was probably just a few hours). She doesn't believe me that I was crying because I was happy about not being turfed out, though. She thinks I was lying to her about the house thing to make her feel better.

So, yeah, Lara's a lesbian. But it never mattered anyway, because she just didn't date people.

Until she did, and then it _did_ matter, but not because I'm some placard-waving bigot.

On Tuesday, Lara came home late. Not that late, but late. She normally catches the seven-oh-five after playing Katniss on the university oval and is home by seven-thirty, gushing something about how many targets she hit. This time, though, she wasn't home until eight-thirty.

An hour was too long for a stopover at the local supermarket, and all the rest of the stores around us were closed. She wasn't shopping, and the library closed at six.

It was suspicious. What was even more suspicious was the huge secret smile she had on her face while she was taking off her boots at the door. She looked delirious about something.

"What?" she asked me pleasantly when she saw I was staring at her from the couch, nursing a scalding-hot poptart.

"You're smiling," I observed. Normally I love it when Lara smiles, but not when I'm not the cause of it.

That made her blush a little, and her smile grew even wider. "Yeah," she said. When it was clear I wanted more information, she said, "A new girl joined The Sisters. We partnered up for points and we got along really well, so she invited me out for dinner afterward." She stood up, beaming. "Anyway, she's dead keen on Egyptian Archaeology, and she invited me along to the Royal Museum's exhibition on Saturday!"

I think I was supposed to be excited for her. I wasn't. "Why!" I said flatly.

She looked somewhat surprised. "Uh, I think we went through this last year," she said. "Anyway, her name's Mariko. She's a history major at UL. Final year."

_Mariko_? "She's Japanese?"

Lara's eyebrow flickered. "Yes? So are you, remember?"

"_Exactly_," I said, and then sat forward on the couch. This was _not_ good. "Is she gay?"

Lara ducked into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of milk. "I suppose," she said, wandering back into the living room and sitting beside me with it. "I didn't exactly give her the fifth degree while we were trying to eat." She hunted for the remote.

"But you must have been able to tell somehow," I accused her. "Did she kiss you?"

"_Sam!"_ Lara said. "I know you're only doing the Concerned Friend routine about someone who's interested in me, but I _promise_ you she's just lovely. Now," she looked down at the remote which she'd rescued from between the cushions, "isn't Operation Repo on now?"

I stared at the side of her head for a good five minutes until the nutjobs on TV distracted me. 'Lovely', was she? Well, I had to see this 'Mariko' for myself.

I was up at nine a.m. on a Saturday, which is a pretty amazing for someone who never got to bed before three a.m. on a Friday. I was completely hungover, too, but it was nothing that two Red Bulls and a greasy croissant wouldn't fix.

Lara had already left, which meant I needed to get my game on and get out of the door. I had been planning to catch the train but I was _so_ late that in the end I just ran out in front of a taxi instead. Fortunately it screeched to a stop before it mowed me down. "Royal Museum," I told the driver as I forced my way inside it, and then turned to the passenger already in the cab. "Sorry," I said. "It's an emergency. My best friend is about to make a _terrible _mistake."

Neither of them made a fuss which was great, and I got dropped a block from the Museum, the opposite side to the station. There was a café there, and it was the _perfect _stakeout point. I sat out the front and took out my camera. "HD digital zoom 50x," I said and lovingly stroked it. "You're_ my_ one true love." I held the camera up towards the entrance to the museum.

While I was working away at croissant number two and coffee number one, I examined the whole front steps of the Museum for someone who looked Japanese. There were a few Asian girls on the grass out front, but none of them were screaming _Japanese_ at me.

I did see Lara come out of the entrance to the Tube, though. Before she rounded the fence to the stairs, she fixed her hair and agonised over whether the top button on her shirt should be open or closed.

"Closed," I said to myself, and a couple at the table next to me gave me a weird look. In the end, she settled on 'open', and that made me even more worried.

On the stairs, she stood looking around for a few seconds and then waved at someone. I panned quickly over to the girl she was waving at and double-took. Mariko didn't look Japan-Japanese at all. I mean, when I zoomed right in she kind of _did_ look Japanese, but she was wearing jeans and sneakers and a plain grey scoop-neck t-shirt with Cons. There were no cute little skirts, weird layers of fabric or super-girly bags. She just looked like any English university student; she must been here for a while.

They had this awkward moment where Lara went to hug Mariko and she wasn't expecting it but let Lara do it, anyway. Lara looked mortified. Actually, it was kind of cute. Mariko put her hand on Lara's arm for a moment, stepping in towards her. I could see she was commenting on shirt. For about half a second I saw her look down, it, too.

"Damn it, Lara!" I hissed at the LCD panel. "I _told _you to button it up!"

"Can I help you?" a waiter asked me pointedly, distracting me from my furor.

I looked up at him, annoyed. Lara and Mariko were already walking up the stairs which meant I had to high tail it up there. "No," I said. "Actually, you can't." I gave him a handful of notes that had been in my pocket and rushed over towards the museum. I couldn't count money at time like this.

Unfortunately, I'd given all my change to him so when I had to pay entrance at the Museum, I was the only person in the line paying my five pounds by credit card I swear to God it felt like it took ten minutes; I was going to lose them. The attendant pretended not to mind and gave me a map once it had gone through. "Where's all the old Egyptian stuff?" I asked her, remembering Lara had mentioned something about Mariko liking all that

"The Tutankhamen exhibit is in the East Wing, here," she marked it on my map.

"Thanks," I said, and then took off up the wide corridor.

I found Mariko and Lara side-tracked in seventeenth century India, instead. I wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, but they were laughing about something together and Mariko was animatedly telling some story. Lara wasn't really listening, although she was pretending to. When Mariko got to the punch-line, Lara laughed politely. For a second I was secretly smug about the fact Lara wasn't listening and didn't actually find her funny, until Lara managed to suddenly get enough courage to reach out and take Mariko's hand. _That_ must have been what had been distracting her; she was stressing about doing it.

Mariko looked down at their hands, then at Lara, and smiled. Lara _blushed_, and I tripped over some lady's handbag that had randomly appeared on the floor in front of me. "Sorry," I told her, and then kept following them.

They did eventually end up checking out Tutankhamen. Mariko got increasingly excited as they approached the East Wing and by the time they made it through the doorway she was practically gushing. She was talking so loudly _I_ could hear it. I didn't care much about the stuff she was babbling on about, but I _did_ notice she had a slight accent. Lara looked absolutely charmed by it.

Whatever, I thought. _I_ could do a seriously decent Japanese accent if _that's_ what Lara really wanted to listen to. She didn't need to outsource.

They spent absolutely ages wandering around the wing and I was getting sick of hearing random facts about various Pharaohs. Lara wasn't, though. In fact, she looked really disappointed when they reached the end, until Mariko suggested they grab some lunch and eat it on the grass out the front.

This stank of a date that neither of them wanted to end. If they were experienced daters like me and not obsessive archaeology nerds, they would know that second dates should be in the evening. That way when the date is over, you can invite the person around to your house.

I thought about that.

On second thoughts, it was fucking _great_ that it was happening at midday on a Saturday afternoon. All that broad daylight was the antithesis to women taking off their clothes.

Lunch turned out to be chicken wraps and green iced tea. I couldn't have planned more boring food if I'd brainstormed 'tame lunches' as a topic for a month. They were pretty boring on the lawn, too. I mean, not that I was actually hoping they'd stick their tongues down each other's throats or something, but for the large majority of their time, they just leaned back on their elbows and talked.

I had returned to my perfect stakeout point for something fried, but spent the whole time not eating it and staring at my LCD and trying various settings to see how much detail I could get.

When I got the frame perfect and I had a really great view of them, I discovered what I _thought_ was boringness was actually them both freely ogling each other whilst talking about something unrelated. I zoomed in on Mariko's chest and squinted at the screen. They were bigger than mine; I immediately hated her even more.

I got sick of waiting in agony for them to jump each other, and went to use the bathroom at the café.

I had been sitting in there staring at my knees and wondering if I was missing the exact moment when Lara developed some hormones like a normal university student, when the door to the toilet opened and two women thick in conversation poured in.

Lara's voice I recognised immediately. I sat upright. At least I was in the end stall near the wall so Lara couldn't see my shoes, because they were too fabulous to not immediately give me away.

"But they'll know we didn't buy anything!" Lara was saying, but she was laughing. "I have this awful image of that grumpy waiter marching right in here and throwing us out unless we agree to buy some coffee!"

Mariko was laughing, too. "Then we'll just have to stay and have coffee," she said. The statement was loaded.

Lara stopped laughing. "I'd like that," she said, and I could hear she was still smiling. "But I've got this horrible paper due in on Monday that I haven't started."

She was lying. She finished that paper a week ago. Some small part of me hoped that she wasn't enjoying herself as much as she sounded like she was.

"Is that your polite way of turning me down?" Mariko asked, but by the sound of it she already knew Lara's answer.

Say 'yes' anyway, Lara, I mentally willed her. Yes, yes…

She ignored my attempt at psychic intervention. "Not at all," Lara said. "I had a great time."

"How great?" Mariko asked playfully.

If I leaned down in the stall, I could see their feet were pretty close together. I stood up and pulled up my pants, but I didn't flush the toilet yet. I didn't want them to know I was there. I put my eye against the crack in the doorframe.

Mariko had walked Lara right up against the tiles on the side wall and they were both grinning ear-to-ear at each other, arms around each other's waists. On the one hand, it was so adorable watching two baby lesbians try and figure the whole dating thing out. On the other hand, just, no. She was _so_ not about to get with this girl.

I toyed with the idea of opening the door right then and just walking between the two of them totally casually on my way to the basin.

While I was seriously considering that, Mariko leaned in and kissed Lara. That girl was _really_ lucky I didn't have a gun, seriously. Or know how to use a gun. I would have topped her right there. I was pretty unhappy about all this giggling and batting of eyelashes, but I was _super_ unhappy about the fact she was now also getting it on with Lara.

After I'd spent a few seconds watching them, I had at least one of my questions answered. It was a totally awkward kiss which kind of implied they hadn't kissed before. They got into it pretty quickly though, and after like maybe twenty seconds they were leaning heavily against each other, making out right there in some wholesome café's women's.

I watched Lara's hand very closely. It was tracking a dangerous route up Mariko's back and when the door burst open and some poor middle-aged woman interrupted them, her thumb had already been on the side of one of Mariko's boobs.

Thank you, old woman, I thought. I am _so_ paying for whatever you just had.

Lara and Mariko jerked away from each other, trying desperately to look innocent even though it was totally clear what they'd just been doing. I'd never actually seen Lara look flustered; it kind of suited her, actually. Her cheeks were bright red and I could see how quickly she was breathing. I wanted to see more of it, but the old woman walked right up to the cubicle next to me and got straight to work. I scrunched up my nose.

I waited for a while until I couldn't hear Lara or Mariko anymore, and then flushed the toilet and made my way to the basin.

I had been rolling up my sleeves and wondering how I was going to ruin Lara's next date when I heard, "_Sam_?" That was Lara's voice. I looked up from my sleeves, my heart pounding. She was standing at the basin, staring open-jawed at me. Mariko was obviously already waiting outside. "What are _you _doing in—did you follow me?"

I grit my teeth. Busted. "I got lost," I began, "on my way to tell you that I don't want you to date that girl."

She looked surprised, and then glared at me. "Sam," she said. "I thought you were okay with… everything."

I rolled my eyes. "It's not _that_," I said, pushing her out the way of the basin with my hip so I could wash my hands. "It's just, like…"

"Like what, Sam?" she asked quite sharply. "Like it's fine for you to go out and shag any large number of boys but when I want to date someone you have a massive problem with it?"

I stared at her as I stuck my hands under the dryer. "Well, yeah," I said. "That's kind of it exactly."

She crossed her arms, looking pretty angry. "Sam, that's not fair!"

I looked at my hands while I rubbed them together under the jet. "I don't know why you're so into her, anyway. I'm prettier."

"Oh, my God!" Lara said, losing patience with me and putting her hands up on her head for a moment while she looked at the ceiling. "Oh, my God! Sam, you're not competing with her! You already got the position, you're my best friend!"

I looked up at her. "Exactly! So why do you need another one? I saw you, getting all giggly and chatty. You can have that with me!" I didn't actually really know what I was saying, but I figured I'd just let my mouth run off with it and see where it led me. "So what do you need her for?"

She gave me a look. "Do I really need to answer that? Really?"

I made a face. "Then just have _that_ with her and leave the rest for me. That's all I do with guys, anyway."

She shook her head, holding up her hands at me to signal she'd have enough. "I'm going to go out with her, Sam, because I really enjoy her company. You'd better get used to it." She turned around and just walked through the door.

Outside, I could hear Mariko asking her what took her so long. She made something up.

I glared at the door. I was _so_ not just going to lie down and 'get used to it', that was for sure.


	5. While You Were Working

**Anonymous asked: Ever thought of doing a Sam and Lara fic with the twister shower and/or bed sheet. I can totally see Sam surprising Lara with it and Lara just thinking "wow, Sam picked out some ugly tiles"**

* * *

**While You Were Working - Lara(POV)/Sam - SFW**

By Asynca, in 21 minutes.

* * *

Sam was giving me _that look_ again as I walked in through the front door of our flat.

For ordinary people, I think that usually meant that if I wasn't up for it I should suddenly find somewhere really important to be and quickly go lock myself there. For Sam, however, it could have meant any number of things:

She'd spent what I would consider to be Too Much Money on ridiculous things that neither of us needed or had anywhere to actually put, and that guilt manifested as a desire to jump all over me and get proof I still loved her;

She'd posted a video of me she knew I wouldn't approve of and now felt awfully guilty, and that guilt manifested as a desire to jump all over me and get proof that I still loved her;

She'd booked us a holiday to somewhere full of drugs and nightclubs and all-night dance parties and that guilt manifested as a desire to jump all over me and get proof that I still loved her…

…actually, now I think about it, the only reason Sam was ever gagging for it was because she knew she'd done something I wouldn't like. And rather than just telling me and asking for my forgiveness – heaven forbid we actually _talk_ about anything like normal people – she'd rather just enact her penance _on_ me and tell me later when I'm too shagged to do anything about it.

I zipped my boots off. "What have you done?" I asked her flatly.

She fidgeted uncomfortably in the doorway of the kitchen. "You know," she said, squinting. "That's actually a really philosophical question…"

I put my boots neatly together in the corner, and then fixed Sam's haphazardly discarded shoes, too. While I was doing that, I noticed there was a layer of white dust on my lovely clean floorboards. That looked like… I bent down and touched my fingertip to it. Plaster, perhaps? "No, it's not," I said. "It's really very simple. Why is there white dust on the floor?"

Sam turned and leaned heavily against the doorway, looking pained. "Lara…" she said at length. "Can't I just want to do my girlfriend because she's _totally_ hot?"

I narrowed my eyes at her as I walked past, following the white trail. "Maybe in some alternate universe where there isn't mystery dust and boot prints everywhere."

She caught me before I went into the bathroom. When I looked quizzically at her, she made that agonised expression again. "Maybe you shouldn't go in there," she said. "Maybe we should have sex on the kitchen table. We haven't christened it yet, and that's practically heresy."

I retrieved my hand, gave her a look, and then continued my investigation.

When I pushed open the bathroom door expecting to see plain white, I got a surprise: in the space of a few hours while I'd been at work, the poor bathroom had suffered a complete makeover. Where there had been classic white tiles, there was now a series of loud primary-coloured spots, each as large as a dinner-plate. They were all lined up and led from the door all through the shower cubicle, which was now twice the size it had been this morning. It looked _terrible_, like someone had made an awful decorating mistake when they were designing a children's nursery. Keeping with that theme, there was a playful dial with colours on it near the shower. I spun it, and the arrow landed on red. There was a symbol of a hand.

Sam had slunk in behind me, looking horribly guilty. She put the palm of her hand flat on a red spotted-tile and winced at me. "Have you ever played Twister?" she asked me innocently.


	6. Man to Man

**"Anonymous asked: Prompt: Roth misinterprets relationship, gives Sam the Talk."**

**Man to Man - Sam (POV), Roth, Lara (GEN) - SFW**

* * *

By Asynca, in 55 minutes.

* * *

Someone was knocking on our door.

I'd been expecting it to be the mail guy with a package or something, and since I had a pounding headache I figured I'd just pick it up at the post office later. About ten minutes into the knocking, though, it dawned on me that probably the mail guy wouldn't be _that_ persistent. Who would it be, though? Lara wouldn't be home this early and my other friends would just keep texting and IMing until I came out and got them – I didn't think I knew anyone who'd actually _knock_.

I sat up in bed and spent a good twenty seconds making a series of noises which articulated just how much I did _not_ want to get up. Then I lay back down and pulled the blankets over my head. Maybe I could just _will_ the person at the door to go away and stop knocking if I tried hard enough. Tragically, owing to the fact I don't actually have any psychic powers, the knocking continued.

Eventually, I admitted defeat and just got up.

As I was staggering down the hallway, I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. I looked like _crap. _Like, worse than crap, I looked half-dead. Seriously, if I'd held my arms up and started moaning '_braaaaiinnsss'_, it would have looked totally in character. I had these huge dark circles under my eyes and my hair looked like something straight off Japanese TV. There was nothing about me that didn't scream _hangover._

So, of course, it was Roth. And he was wearing a shirt for like the first time ever. It even looked _ironed_.

"Lara's not here," I said, still wondering why he'd bother knocking for ten minutes. "She goes to class on Mondays until five and then she goes to work."

"I'm actually not here to see Lara," he said. "May I…?"

I was so confused by that, I just stared at him for like five seconds. Then I realized I was being really rude. "Yeah, of course, sorry," I said, standing aside and letting him in. "You want some tea or something?"

"Thanks," he said, and wandered slowly into the hallway, looking around us. "This is a nice place you two have got yourselves here," was his appraisal. "After that pokey little place Lara had Westside, I'll bet she doesn't know what to do with herself now there's room for actual furniture. Is it two bedroom?"

That seemed like a bit of a strange question, but I guessed Lara and I had bunked at boarding school so it wouldn't be _that_ weird to be sharing with her in a flat, especially in London. "Yeah," I said, ushering him into the kitchen and flicking on the electric jug. He sat kind of hesitantly at the kitchen table while it boiled. I took out a couple of cups. "How do you take it?"

"Black," he said. "No sugar."

Well, that was pretty easy. I dropped a bag into the mug and filled it up, taking it across to him. For myself, I poured myself a glass of water and dropped a Berocca into it. It was probably a myth that Vitamin B helped with hangovers, but whatever. Anything was worth a shot with this one. "So are you here about Lara's birthday?" It wasn't for a month or so, but Roth seemed like the kind of guy who'd want to be prepared. I was more of a shop-the-night-before person, myself.

He just frowned at me. He had some pretty impressive furrows in his brow, I noticed. It would look totally dramatic on black and white film. "No," he said. "Actually I thought you and I could have a little talk about Lara."

Okay… "About Lara?"

"Yes," he said. "You know she's like a daughter to me, Sam. I care about what happens to her and she doesn't always make great decisions about her welfare."

That, I laughed at. "Hah! You can say that again," I agreed, taking a sip of my Berocca. I made a face; I'd forgotten how disgusting that stuff was. "She's got _three_ jobs at the moment. Did you know that? She just picked up a shift at the café on the corner."

He smiled slightly. "Well, she's a hard worker. She's ambitious. Just like her father." His smile faded. "And I know you care about her, too. Which is why we need to talk."

I had _no_ idea what was going on.

He leaned back in the chair, taking a mouthful of his tea and watching me closely. It was kind of intimidating. "I was in town last night and I saw you leave the Builder's Arms with a young man. You weren't even trying to hide it, Sam. You were all over the boy."

What on… Okay, this was _really_ weird. What the hell was Roth doing at the Builder's Arms and why would he care about me getting it on with some random guy? I knew Roth was _traditional_, but this was super, super traditional. Should I have married him first or something?

When I just sat there with my mouth open and no sound coming out, Roth continued. "Where was Lara when all of this was happening?"

"Uh, where she always is? At work?"

He sighed and shook his head at me. "I suppose you think that makes it all fine, then," he said. "Sam, this is _not _fine, you're living together now. It's time you started being respectful of her."

"I thought I _was_ being 'respectful' by doing it while she's at work so at least she doesn't have to _hear_ it?" I said, feeling so totally uncomfortable about talking about this with him. It was right up there with That Time Your Parents Tried to Explain Sex on the awkward-o-metre. "And by the way, Lara doesn't mind. She knows what I'm like."

He ran a hand over his face. "Look," he said. "Look. This is really difficult for me. I wasn't brought up with it and I am trying to understand for Lara's sake," he said. "But you can't tell me that she thinks it's fine if you're bringing all manner of riff-raff into your bed when she's at work. I just can't believe that."

I just, like, stared at him. What do you even say to that? Your best friend's de facto dad telling you to stop sleeping around? Why did my extra-curricular activities matter to him, anyway? Did he think I was a bad influence on Lara or something? I scoffed internally: like that could ever possibly be the case. Lara was, like, _super_ picky to the point of just looking for reasons to never sleep with anyone. If I hadn't rubbed off on her in six years, I wasn't going to do it now just because we were living together.

"You want me to stop sleeping around?" I asked him, for confirmation.

"Yes, Sam," he said. "I don't care about what sort of arrangement you've got with Lara. It's not right."

This was _too_ weird. Too, too weird. I just really needed this conversation to be over ASAP. I didn't really intend to actually _stop _having sex, but I guessed I was going to have to be more careful about it when Roth was in town. How did he see me, anyway? Was he _following_ me? "Okay," I said. "I mean, if it's that important to you I guess I can stop."

"It's not for me," he said, finishing his tea. "It's for Lara. Look, Sam, I know you've got a good heart. I know you do. I know you care about her as much as I do. But I also know you've not had a father around to teach you the right way to do things. That's not your fault, but I'll not have you taking that out on Lara, she's a good girl."

Ouch. That came out of nowhere. I could clearly hear that he was implying that I _wasn't_ a good girl, which just _hurt_. I'd changed a lot since I was a teenager, _he_ knew that. Compared to then, I was completely cleaned up. So I still drank on the weekends and slept with people, so what? It wasn't the 1950s anymore. People did that now. Well, people except his precious Lara.

And that stuff about my father? I blinked back tears. That stuff _hurt._ I wasn't going to cry in front of him. "Okay," I said, because I didn't know what else to do. He wasn't the sort of person you could contradict.

He went to show himself out, and I followed him automatically. As I opened the door for him, he actually looked me up and down. He didn't approve. "And shouldn't you be dressed at three o'clock in the afternoon? What are you still doing in your pajamas?"

Being a loser and a bad influence on Princess Lara, I thought, and blinked back more tears. How was this conversation _not_ over yet? "Nothing."

He put his hands on my shoulders and forced me to look at him. There was a warm, stoic smile on his face. "Just do the right thing by Lara, Sam. I know you've got it in you. I know you do."

After he'd gone I just kind of leaned against the door. What the hell had just happened? What was _that_? I hadn't had anyone tell me they were disappointed in me for years now, but it feel exactly the fucking same. Exactly the same as when I'd been standing in front of the headmistress and my parents and having a list of my transgressions recited while I stared at the laminate floor. 'She's your daughter, not mine', Dad had said to Mum afterwards, 'but clearly you can't be trusted to raise her'.

I went back to bed and lay there on top of the unmade blankets. Fuck this, I thought as I wiped my eyes. I haven't done anything wrong, have I?

My cell buzzed, and I toyed with the idea of just leaving it. I didn't feel like talking to anyone right now. Unfortunately, my curiosity got the better of me and I held it up for a second to see who it was.

"_Hey_," it was from Lara, "_Roth just called me. He was being really odd. Was he around there before?"_

I unlocked the phone and texted back, "_Yeah. To tell me to stop sleeping with people because I'm still a bad influence on you, apparently._"

"_Sam_," came the reply. "_He basically said, 'It's okay, Lara, Sam and I had a little chat and I want you to know that you two have my blessing and I'm okay with it'. What on earth did you tell him?"_

That me and Lara had his… I sat bolt upright in bed.

_Shit._


	7. Merry Christmas

**"You should write something really scary. Like a tr horror story."**

* * *

**Merry Christmas - Sam (POV), Lara - SFW**

By Asynca, in 26 minutes.

* * *

Not that I'd ever had any latent desire to carve out a cooking show career for myself, but I _did_ set up my camera in the corner to document my progress on the seriously awesome eggnog I was going to make Lara.

Okay, so I'd never actually _made_ eggnog before, but I'd drunk it heaps so I figured I was an authority on it. The problem was, my really great idea of making it before she got home sort of relied on me suddenly developing previously unexpressed cooking skills. And, as I tried to separate the egg whites and just dropped huge chunks of shell into the milk, I realised that just the desire to cook hadn't actually spontaneously transformed me into Gordon Ramsey. Shit. Not even good editing could save _this_ disaster.

I stared down at the shell floating innocently on top of my probably-burnt milk. Then, I made a cursory attempt at fishing it out with a soupspoon before eventually giving up. "Whatever," I told the camera. "_Eggnog à la Sam_ has texture. It's a new recipe. Plus, egg shells are full of calcium and minerals, right? This eggnog is good for your teeth."

When it got to the point where I had to mix the brandy in, I just tipped the bottle over the saucepan and let it glug out while I munched on a slice of shortbread. I was usually disappointed by the low alcohol content in eggnog, so since it was up to me, it was going to be more flammable than an English plum pudding.

When I was done, the mixture didn't look frothy and smell like nutmeg. It looked like curdled Baileys and smelt like burnt milk.

I showed the camera and nearly sloshed scalding hot alcohol all over my wrist. "Hey, it's the thought that counts, right?" I declared. "Right!" Whoa, I'd had _too _much of that brandy.

I did actually manage to get the _Eggnog à la Sam _into two mugs without spilling it everywhere, burning myself or setting fire to the kitchen. That in itself was an enormous triumph, so when I staggered into the living room with two hot mugs I hadn't been expecting to wreck everything by spilling it all over the floor, but I did.

Lara had been sitting in the dark on the couch beside the Christmas tree, half-lit by the flickered multi-coloured lights. I had _no idea_ she was home.

"You should clean that up," she said in a really strange voice. She was being all weird again. I know she missed her family, but it had been so many years. Surely it was traditional by now to spend Christmas with me? Especially when I'd been trying so valiantly to make her celebratory Christmassy drinks to chill her out.

"Merry Christmas to you, too," I said dryly and rolled my eyes. I put the eggnog on the table beside her and then I went back into the kitchen to grab the dishcloth and my camera. I dropped the cloth directly onto the puddle and just kind of pushed it around with my foot and hoped that would do it.

Lara didn't say anything back to me.

"What's up with you, anyway?" I asked her as I reached towards the living room light switch. No one looked good in Night Mode. "It's _Christmas_. You know, a time for joy and hope and all that?"

It wasn't until I turned on the light that I could see the awful expression of shellshock on her face. She had a folded piece of paper in her hand. It looked like it had been scrunched into a ball in someone's fist and then rescued and re-folded.

Lara looked down at it, and then up at me. She held it up for a moment. "Blood test results," she said, and then struggled with the next part. "Sam, they're _positive."_

I didn't… _what_? The camera fell by my side as I gaped at her.

She just looked haunted. "Merry Christmas," she murmured.


	8. Agreement (set after The Dreaming)

**Agreement - Lara (POV), Min (est L/S, M/B) - SFW**

* * *

By Asynca, in 47 minutes.

Set after_ The Dreaming_, FULL of spoilers.

* * *

It took me several seconds to realise the sound I was half-hearing was my phone vibrating itself off my bedside table. I woke up enough to roll over and catch it before it walked itself off and smashed all over our brand new floorboards. It was already my fifth iPhone inside twelve months; Apple didn't need any more of my money.

I had assumed the racket was a series of emails, probably from Australia and probably about the business, but when I lay back and held the phone in front of my face it continued to vibrate in my hand. My eyes weren't clear yet so I just decided to take a gamble and answer it. "Hello?" God, my voice. I sounded half-dead.

"Hi." In that single word, I recognised a pronounced Australian twang. Min. "You busy?"

"Not unless you count sleeping," I whispered.

"I do, but since you're not sleeping now, I guess you're free," I could hear the smirk in her voice. "Is Sam there with you?" I looked over at her in her nest of blankets and pillows. She was snoring. Before I could answer, Min said, "Wait, I can hear her, never mind. I need to talk to you."

It was God knows what time in the morning, but that phrase still got the adrenaline pumping so much I could have taken down an army. "Okay, give me a second," I said, and slipped out of bed. The floorboards were _freezing_ and it was too dark for me to find when I'd put my slippers, even with the phone. I just took Sam's fluffy dressing gown from a pile of clothes on the floor and padded down the stairs into the living room.

Downstairs was much warmer, even though the embers in the fireplace were nearly dead. I went and sat on our immortal beanbag as close to the hearth as I could without burning my feet on the hot slate. "Okay," I said, not actually sure I was ready to hear whatever she had to say. "What's wrong?"

There was a moment of silence. "Well, I got the contract. Yesterday, actually."

"Oh?" I wasn't sure what that meant. I hoped there weren't some terms in it that were inadvertently insulting. I just had no idea what concept artists normally got paid or what to set the retainer at; Sam had done all of that research for me. "Is there a problem with it? Because I'm happy to change it, you know. I'm the one who wrote it. Just let me know what doesn't work and I'll get Sam's lawyer to make the amendments and send you a new one."

She made a noise. "That's not it," she said, and then sighed. "Lara…"

My heart was pounding.

"I lay awake in bed last night stressing," she said eventually. "I can't sleep until I ask you something."

Then ask it before the suspense kills me, I thought, staring down at the fluffy dressing gown over my knees. "Oh?"

"Yeah…" she said, and then spent a few moments thinking about how she was going to say whatever she was going to say while I worried about what it was going to be. "Lara, are you creating a whole fucking video game franchise just to give me work because of what happened to me?"

I exhaled with relief. Thank _God_ that's all it was. Still, I had to be a bit careful how I answered that. "Well," I said, "Sam and I were actually talking about what a great idea it is to turn it all into a video game. We lost a lot of footage after I—" shot her, I thought, but didn't say it, "after we were all kidnapped."

I could hear her release a breath she'd been holding, too. She laughed once. "I was going to tell you that I didn't want you to, if that's why," she said. "But I'm _so_ glad I don't have to say that, because it's shit trying to find work as an artist."

I thought back to all those _amazing_ pictures covering her wall. "But you're so good!"

She chuckled. "Oh, really…?" There was something about the way she said that.

I rolled my eyes, and I think it was audible in my voice. "Don't you start."

"Don't worry, I never start anything I can't finish," she said at the very bottom of her voice. I loved the way it sounded and because of that I was very glad when she went back to her normal tone. "Can you hear that? That's the sound of my pen signing this beautiful contract you sent me."

Hang on. "Wait, you were thinking of not signing it?"

She paused, and so did the pen and the paper-flicking I could hear in the background. "Lara, you know how I feel about charity."

I made an oh-shape with my mouth. "Oh, no, no," I said, realising what she meant. "Actually I wanted to help you guys way before what happened with Natla," I said, and then bit my lip while I thought about how to explain it without going too much into everything at five in the morning. "I lost a lot of friends last year," I told her. "I miss them. I can't believe I'm saying this because I'm a complete hermit, but I also really miss having people around. It was just really nice to meet you and Bree. You're both great. If I have all this money from Natla, why _wouldn't_ I want to do something productive with it, something that is for all of us?"

She thought about that before she eventually spoke. "Okay," she said simply. "By the way, Bree almost needed to be tranquilised for her own safety when she found out you're using her as a character."

I laughed at that. I could imagine. "So everything's okay with the contract?"

She made an affirmative noise. "Which is good, because I need some sleep. It's an oven in this fucking country right now."

"Okay, well, I'm going to not to freeze to death in _this_ country and go back to bed," I said, and then had a thought. "Min, if I'd told you that I actually was doing it all for you, would you still have signed it?"

There was a long, agonising pause. "Yes," she said. "I'm working with _you_."

My breath caught in my throat, and to my horror I felt butterflies in my stomach. I closed my eyes and scrunched up my face. We are _not_ doing this, I thought. No. She's too great a friend for us to wreck everything by doing this when we know it can't ever go anywhere. "I'm going back to bed," was all I said.

"Okay. Sleep well," she said neutrally, and then hung up. Was it too quickly? Or was it a normal hang up?

I stared at the landing screen of my phone for a few seconds until it locked and went dark. Standing, I took a deep breath and exhaled at length. It some ridiculous hour of the morning and I didn't really want to dwell on the conversation I'd had right now. Because on top of everything, it was _cold_, and the thought of Sam keeping the bed warm for me was actually really appealing. I tip-toed back upstairs and crawled under the covers with her.

"Hey," she mumbled and then pulled my arm around her stomach, gasping when my hand touched her skin. "You're _cold_!"

"Not anymore." I smiled into her neck and went back to sleep.


	9. Little Blue Cross

**Little Blue Cross - Lara (POV)/Sam - SFW**

* * *

By Asynca, in 21 minutes.

* * *

We both stood in the kitchen light and stared down at the little white stick. There wasn't any doubt about it at all, the symbol that was slowly revealing itself was a "+". Sam had been watching the panel of it through the LCD of her camera, but folded the screen closed as the cross solidified.

"Shit," she said, just double-checking the box to make sure that meant what she thought it did. "I've changed my mind. They can put it in cryo and I'll worry about this in like five or ten years, or, like, never."

I kissed her temple, a big smile spreading across my face. _Finally_. God, it was terrifying. "Congratulations," I told her anyway, and then leaned my crutch on the counter, taking the glass of red out of her hand and pouring it down the sink in one smooth movement.

She made a cursory attempt to stop me, but didn't put any real commitment into it. "I hate everything," she said. "And now I have to wait nine months before I can drink over it."

"You can't drink when you're breastfeeding, either," I reminded her, just checking _again_ to make sure the stick _definitely_ had a cross on it. We'd been waiting seven months for that little cross, and now that we had it, it was surreal. Maybe it was too good to be true. "Perhaps you should try another one," I suggested. "Just to make sure."

"That's number three right there," she said, putting the camera beside where I'd put her empty wine glass. "Oh, God…" She put a hand over her eyes. "I mean, I'm excited, but also, like, _why am I doing this_?"

"You _wanted_ children," I reminded her. "And, actually, the timing's not bad, is it? My knee's still on the mend." I'd taken a very long jump very badly in Mongolia and ended up absolutely wrecking half of my joints and breaking a couple of bones. Most of them just ached occasionally, but I was still on crutches for one of my legs.

"Great," Sam said, not sounding very comforted. "You'll be around so I can wake you in the middle of the night and make you drive to London to get me Macadamia Ice-cream and Polish pickles or whatever it is pregnant women want."

"Looking forward to it," I told her, and then looked back at the stick again. It was unbelievable what that little blue cross meant for both of us. For our lives and our future. I laughed at the sheer enormity of it. "Oh, my God."

Sam made a pained noise as she put the stick down and stepped into my arms. I kissed her nose. "Shit," she said, finally smiling. "Shit, Lara. We're going to be parents."


End file.
